


Something in Our Sky

by KiraNightshade44



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Future, Angst, Clever Rey, Dystopia, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Eventual Smut, F/M, Forced Partnership, Horror Elements, Major Character Injury, Non-Traditional Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Science Fiction, Slow Burn, Snarky Ben Solo, Survival
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-14
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:34:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 24
Words: 173,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28059270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KiraNightshade44/pseuds/KiraNightshade44
Summary: Set in the distant future, Rey Kenobi, along with twenty-six other space cadets, are tasked with finding a hospitable planet to sustain the final remnants of humanity. The Earth heaves its last dying gasps as an age-old war consumes those still alive. In a race against time, Rey leaves it all behind to find salvation for humankind in the distant reaches of the galaxy.What she doesn't know is that her mysterious co-pilot is hiding a dark secret, threatening to destroy them all.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 715
Kudos: 289





	1. Revival

**Author's Note:**

> So I have had this idea for a little while. I want to do something different with these characters, so - not all details will be revealed in the tags. I want somewhat of an element of surprise here ;) For the most part, this story is really just going to be about Ben and Rey. The fanfics I have always enjoyed the most is placing the two MCs in a dire situation together and forcing them to work their shit out. Sexual tension is just an added bonus. 
> 
> Plus, who doesn't love an A/B/O story?
> 
> I do fully intend to return to some of the works I have put on hiatus. Sometimes, sadly, you're just not feeling a certain story and to force it would only produce less than great results. I intend on bouncing between this fic and my vamp fic for now. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy <3

Rey wakes up at exactly 5:30 am. She beats her alarm by five minutes - nearly every morning the same. Her eternal clock is hardwired and as reliable as the fancy solar watches all the big wigs wear around base. 

But this morning is different. 

There are many things running through her mind upon waking. She lies in her bed alone and stares up at the concrete ceiling of her small bedroom. She has never really noticed how cracked her ceiling is; how there are chunks missing out of it and those tiny crevices that run like veins from wall to wall. She supposes that should alarm her, considering there is over one hundred feet of concrete over her head. 

Rey finds she isn’t all that alarmed. This is the only room she has ever had where the doors lock and she does not have to share with another person. All because her IQ scored over ten points above the average genius level (154 to be exact) and her natural inclination to the sciences. All because, of all the humans left on the planet after the war, a war orphan with a high IQ lucked out. 

Big, as it had turned out. 

The single light in the room, a naked bulb hanging from the ceiling, flickers. The floors and walls shudder lowly, and dust shifts over her bed. She automatically turns over on her side so dust doesn’t get in her eyes. This habit is ingrained as well - they must be doing work on the upper levels of the base. It is only when the rollers are running that dust seeps down from the cracks in the walls. 

Though, she realizes now, that is likely not the rollers at all. They’d be prepping for launch already. What she just heard was the fuel injectors running their final cycle. 

Her stomach clenches unpleasantly. 

She stares down the floor where her dusty boots sit, one knocked over and the other on a sharp angle from where she kicked them off last night in a state of exhaustion. This is the last day she will wear those boots. 

She will not need them, where she is going. 

Her limbs ache from overuse, her eyelids heavy in spite of the fact that she is wide awake. How many hours has she trained for this moment? How many simulations has she run? How many test flights, buoyancy drills in the underground swimming pool, emergency protocols - fuck, all of it? Years. It has been _years_. Finally, the day has come. 

Today, she leaves Earth. Forever. 

Rey blows out a pacifying breath and gets out of bed, feet to cold concrete and stomach full of lead. Her bag is already packed - what little worldly she possesses anyways. She checks it anyways, for the millionth time in the last twenty-four hours. Then, she regards her beat-up boots one last time and bends down to put them on. 

And if she stops by the bathroom to throw up, no one needs to know that. 

*

They chose her for many reasons. 

The words _valuable asset_ keep ringing through her head. It was one of the first things that Commanding Officer Akbar told her on her first day of basic training at the International Space Academy. 

_You and the other two dozen officers chosen for this program are valuable assets, Kenobi. Don’t fuck this up._

Well, if there had been a recipe for anxiety-inducing puking at least - let’s see - four times a week, it was that short and sweet introduction into Program Revival. 

Just shy of thirty years old, Rachel Frances Kenobi - or Rey, as she prefers to go by - is one of the world’s leading specialists on horticulture and agriculture. Particularly as it pertains to creating fertile crops on alien planets. She has a doctorate from the University of Geneva - the only university that still exists after the war. She has moderate political views and most importantly, she is a Beta. 

The distinction is paramount really because anything else usually entails that individual being cuffed, gagged and hauled off to one of the many underground prisons on Earth. 

Rey does not remember the war very well. She was only four years old when it ended, which not so coincidentally, leads her to the final reason why she was picked for this mission. Her entire family is dead. Mother, father, and a little brother she can barely recall with any real certainty beyond wishful thinking. 

All dead. 

Roughly fifty years ago, the International Peace Accord was adopted. Nation-states were eliminated, borders gone overnight. Most thought it a cause for celebration. The Earth was still dying, yes, but at least everyone could reach an agreement to a new civilized future of unity. 

But not everyone wanted unity. 

There is another sub-group of human beings that still exist today. Rey has heard of them - has in fact overheard many embellished tales about run-ins with the “savages of the south” as they are often referred to, although as far as Rey knows, Alphas and Omegas are from, well, _everywhere_. She has never encountered either designation, but she knows well enough about them by now to write her own propaganda pamphlet if she likes. 

Alphas are violent, aggressive beasts hellbent on dominating just about everyone, but especially Betas. They have strange sexual urges (at least from what Rey has heard in rumours) and they… _knot_ when they have sex. Whatever the fuck that is. Omegas are even rarer than Alphas. She does not know much about them, only that they tend to be more submissive from what other officers have said. Wanton creatures, with only one thing on the brain. 

Procreation. 

Rey does not take much stock in rumours, but she does know that Alphas and Omegas wanted to be separate from the world. To exist in their own lands and be left to whatever strange and mystifying devices they got up to. If Betas wandered into their territory, they often never came back and the ones that did… well. There were horror stories of course. Plenty of those to go around the media circuit. 

Once the Accord was ratified, Alphas and Omegas began to rebel. And not peacefully either. 

Spies infiltrated important government bases. People were assassinated, buildings torched and civilians attacked. Alphas would rove the streets in packs apparently, killing indiscriminately. 

Then, they got their hands on nuclear weapons. They nuked the capitals first, those former holdouts of the old populist world. Then they went after the farms and freshwater supplies. The conflict grew so bloody, so violent that the government-mandated that Alphas and Omegas be shot on sight. 

If they did not want to enter the civilized world and if they so flagrantly killed mass amounts of people, they were nothing more than rabid dogs needing to be put out of their misery. 

She was at school when it happened. She remembers the teachers loading all the students onto the school buses, and how they were each given a bottle of juice and some cookies to keep quiet. Rey had politely asked one of the teachers where her parents were. The teacher calmly told her that her family, along with all the other families, would be meeting them at the underground bunker. She remembers noting how badly her teacher's hands shook, the entire bus ride out of the city. 

They drove for only an hour before arriving at the bunker, just outside of Surrey. She remembers looking out the window and seeing beautiful colours on the horizon. Colours she had never seen in the sky before. Brilliant red and pink - but not the soft hues of dusk that she was accustomed to. No - these were more like the colours on her backpack. The very same backpack her mother had packed up for her that morning. Magenta, fuchsia, blistering scarlet. 

And then, so far in the distance she could barely make it out, there had been a steadily expanding cloud that much resembled the mushrooms her father always harvested from their garden. She would not go back outside for a very long time and even then, she was in a transport ship and did not see much of the ruined world. 

And she never saw her family again. 

The rapidly deteriorating conditions on the surface grew exponentially worse when the fallout winters began. Bunkers were made, underground facilities much like the one Rey lives in now. Plans for leaving Earth had to be accelerated and in the meantime…

The war ended after twenty years. Mostly because there was nowhere left to go on the surface that was not irradiated. The Alphas and Omegas still exist. Somewhere. Some say they’re wandering the surface as irradiated phantoms. Others say they managed to stow away on the rescue ships that took much of humanity underground. 

Rey does not know, or really care one way or another. She has not given the war much thought in the last twenty years of her life. School always came first. And now, the Program. 

With no family to speak, no ties to this planet beyond a few fleeting friendships and many more passing acquaintances, she was considered perfect in temperament and lack of attachments. The perfect candidate, along with twenty-six others, to find a new Earth for humanity. Alphas and Omegas, war and fallout - these things remain inconsequential next to the prospect of extinction. 

She just hopes, as Officer Akbar once quaintly put it, that she doesn’t fuck it up. 

*

Rey walks down the mesh metal staircase and into the briefing room. She already has her flight suit on, a navy blue one-piece suit made from lightweight aramid. Fireproof and radiation-resistant. Her shoulder-length brown hair is tied back in a neat bun. 

The other officers are already here, rubbing elbows and chatting excitedly. 

She swallows thicky and walks forward, holding her bag by the straps. They are meeting their Russian, Chinese, Canadian and American counterparts soon - their mission partners. They have each been assigned a BB-series astromech droid for both the flight and for when (or if) they land successfully on their target planets. 

Rey has been assigned to Falcon Eight - so her droid, presumably, will be BB8. Like all the other British officers, she has not met her mission partner yet. He is some American bloke, Matt something or other. She spoke with him once briefly over a transmission but it had been too blurry to make out any details. Getting everyone in the same underground bunker was a logistical nightmare apparently, so they had all the mission officers train remotely. 

She just hopes Matt isn’t a smarmy asshole like some of the other officers. That he is at least tolerable if they are to spend…

Rey stops walking, her stomach doing that awful clenching thing again. 

She knew this already. This is not a surprise, so she shouldn’t be freaking out about this. Of course, she will be spending the next - well - _forever_ in all likelihood with this person. At least, once they land and _if_ everything goes according to plan, they won’t be alone together forever. When they land, she is to send a transmission back to home base on Earth and then the ferrying of all of humanity can begin. Whether it is to her planet, or any of the others the other officers might discover. 

“Kenobi!”

“Uh, yes,” she croaks, only to clear her throat guiltily. 

One of her least favourite officers, Poe Dameron, jogs over to her. He’s got that same cocky smirk he always has, the same smirk he once used to try and get her into bed. That did not turn out so well for him, especially when he got a little too handsy and she smacked him upside his head. But he just bounced right back up again afterward, like nothing ever happened. 

Rey does not quite return his smile and only nods in greeting. 

“You ready, Kenobi? This is the real deal now.”

_No, I’m not ready you absolute wanker. I’ve already puked twice this morning and I have no idea who I have been partnered with._

“Of course,” she answers tightly. 

His smile widens and he claps her on the shoulder, his touch lingering for a few seconds too long before he draws away. 

“Good luck, kid. Break a leg out there.”

“You too,” she says quietly, and at least that part she means. He is a grabby asshole, but he doesn’t deserve to like - blow up in his ship. 

After that, he walks away and Akbar takes the floor. Once he gets into the mission briefing, Rey only half listens. She has already memorized every step of the flight out. When she looks around the room at the pale faces of her fellow offices, she feels at least a little better knowing she isn’t the only one scared shitless. 

She happens to glance at Poe and when she does she finds he is already looking at her. He tips her a wink and she immediately looks away from him to the front of the room. 

Rey hopes whoever they have partnered her with is nothing like Poe Dameron. 

*

The ships are - well - _huge_. 

Each of the Falcons is what is called in the International Space Academy "long truck haulers", an old term from twenty-first century Earth when one of the main modes of product delivery was through large hauling vehicles that would drive from coast to coast. 

Now that she is finally seeing the ships in person, she understands the comparison. 

Each Falcon is a super heavy-lift launch vehicle, equipped with ion blasting engines, a large, fully stocked cabin of food and medical supplies, a gigantic cargo hold for the agriculture and base materials needed when they land, the BB droids’ storage area, and the cockpit. 

Flight simulations do not really do these vehicles justice. 

At least, with the flight portion, Rey feels most confident. Besides Dameron, who even she has to grudgingly admit is a damned good pilot, she performed the best in her class on the practice flights on older Falcon models and on all the flight simulations. They have been prepared for about a thousand different scenarios and while the chance of catastrophic failure is minimal, she is at least somewhat comforted knowing that the cargo hold area is equipped with a detachable escape pod. 

She hopes she won’t have to use it. 

“Alright, Officers. Come this way. Your mission partners are waiting by your ships,” Akbar announces. 

The officers disperse, wishing each other a good flight. Rey feels like her hands and feet have gone numb, but somehow she keeps walking. She walks past all the other Falcons, staring up the massive ships that are to ferry the first settlers across all corners of the galaxy. Her target is Planet X30044 in the Alpha Quadrant of the galaxy. Or about 30,000 parsecs from Earth. 

She tries not to dwell on how far that is, knowing that there is no way for her mind to really reconcile that distance until she crosses it. For now, she is just going to keep taking deep breaths and chugging back the anti-nausea shake Akbar thrust into her hands after the briefing. She is not going to fuck this up. She is brilliant and they chose her for a reason. She is…

But at that moment, Rey forgets what exactly she is supposed to be. 

She stops the way slow-moving rollers do in the processing room upstairs. Gradually, a little robotic. A little slack-jawed. She is just glad she saw him first so he can't see the way she is just _staring_ at him. 

A man stands by Falcon 8. The tallest man Rey has ever seen (though this might be a slight exaggeration on the account of her shocked and befuddled brain). His back is to her, though she can see the profile of his face. He has a proud nose, plush lips and a smattering of beauty marks all over his face. His flight suit is the same as hers; navy blue. Only his seems to be about two sizes too small. He is practically bursting out of it. This man is - _rudely_ large. Really a goliath. Broad shoulders, broad back, thick thighs, thick arms, he is…

He turns towards her, doing a double-take when he realizes she is just _standing_ there, gawking at him. 

“Um… hello. Are you Rachel Kenobi?” His voice is deep. A little flat, though not in the same way Dameron’s American accent is. Dameron sounds like he comes from the eastern provinces of what used to be the United States (at least, that is what he told her). This man’s accent is slightly different. A bit more of a drawl, a bit flat. And crisp. 

He does not seem overly friendly the way he is arching his eyebrow at her. No smile, no warmth at all in his eyes. 

“Rey,” she corrects automatically. And she is blushing. Perfect. “I prefer Rey.”

“Ah. Okay.”

“And you’re Matt right?” _Please say your last name. Please don't think I am an idiot because I can’t bloody remember it._

He hesitates for a second, his dark eyes narrowing for the smallest instant. He has very shiny black hair, she observes faintly. It looks soft, like the feathers of the ravens that used to frequent her childhood garden back before the house and the entire neighbour were obliterated in a burning inferno of radiation. 

He must use conditioner, she surmises. She misses the odd searching look he gives her before answering, far too busy trying to figure out where the hell he gets conditioner from because she hasn’t been able to get her hands on any in over five years. 

“Sackler. Matt Sackler.”

Finally, breaking out of the goopy shock coating her limbs to stillness, she lurches forward and holds out her hand. For a long moment, he stares down at it like he does not know what a hand is and he does not much want it near him. 

She is about to falter, her welcoming smile wilting, when he stiffly takes her hand and gives it exactly one pump before dropping it. Though the touch is brief, she notes that his hand is very warm, but chalks it up to nerves. 

Great. This is great. Maybe Dameron would have been better after all. 

“Well, let’s get ready for pre-flight checks,” she says, attempting to sound commanding. She is going to be the leading officer on their vessel after all. 

He does not reply at all. He just nods at her and steps aside to let her board the Falcon first. 

Well, the next forever is going to be interesting. 


	2. The Beginning of Trouble

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Sir, something is wrong,” Rey begins but that is as far as she gets before she feels something cold and round pressed against her temple. That sweet smell returns as well, only now there is a slightly bitter note to it. 
> 
> Like burned pie crust, of all damned things. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some fun, nerdy facts for ya'll: 
> 
> Much of this account of spaceflight is taken from real-life astronauts, who detailed their experiences in a Washington Post article in 2019 - much of the inspiration for this scene goes to that article and those astronauts' experiences.
> 
> Also, Nepture is my favourite planet. What's yours? 
> 
> Happy Saturday! :D

The cockpit is quiet. In fact, it is so quiet, Rey winces every time she shifts in her seat, the material of her flight suit rasping loudly against her seat. 

Matt has not looked at her once since they boarded the ship. Her co-pilot is short on words and that’s coming from a woman who barely exchanges two sentences with her fellow officers on any given day. He just sits next to her, holding a datapad in one hand and a hypo-spanner in the other, his brows wrinkled and what she suspects is a perennial frown quirking his lips. 

She has refrained from asking him if he knows how to use either item exactly twelve times. 

She does not know what it is about Matt, but there is something innately intimidating about him. It doesn’t help that he is just - well - _intimidating_. Unsmiling, unresponsive, imposing, and _glare-y._ Maybe he is just nervous. Maybe he processes anxiety differently. He definitely has the stoic, brooding thing down pat. 

Or maybe she should give him a chance to warm up. God knows they’ll have lots of time. 

“We should get BB8 online.”

She almost winces when she speaks, feeling very much like her interrupting the tense silence might be construed as a personal affront to him. 

Matt grunts and continues fiddling with the hypospanner. She looks at him from the corner of her eye and feels herself blushing again, though this time it has nothing to do with how oddly handso - _big_ he is. Because that’s all that was before - she was just thrown off. By his size. 

God, she needs to grow some balls. 

_Go on, Rey. Just say it to him._

“Could you go boot it up? We’re lifting off soon and I want to make sure the droid… is…”

Matt gets up before she is even done speaking. He has to duck his head, he is so tall, taking up all the space in what is already a very small cockpit. He goes down the hall - presumably to turn the droid on and disappears out of sight. 

Well, this is just peachy. Her co-pilot will barely look her in the eye, let alone speak to her, and they have only gotten halfway through their pre-flight checks. They haven’t even lifted off yet and already she feels like a decade has passed by. 

She doesn’t remember much from her and Matt’s transmission all those months ago, but she thought he had seemed a lot friendlier then. Hadn’t he made a joke about his last name? She could not remember exactly. Something to do with a comedian… Well, whatever happened in between that day and now, Matt does not seem like the kind of bloke who cracks many jokes. 

Maybe BB8’s social routines will make it one of those cheerful, companionable droids. She can only hope so, otherwise, she has a long road ahead of her. 

Rey sighs and fiddles with the yoke, making sure all the buttons and controls match up to everything she learned in her training. So far everything looks good to go. The fuel is full; there are several back-up canisters in engineering for when they need to refill after the initial jump. The computer has her flight path ready to go and communications are online. 

She peeked at their cargo after they put their bags in storage. As she thought upon first seeing the Falcon, the cargo is massive. There are dozens of deep freezers for the seeds and plant slides, and storage upon storage containers for all the building materials and supplies for what will be their settlement. One of BB8’s main tasks is to help her and Matt construct everything. First, their temporary living quarters, then the greenhouses and eventually the village. 

She has studied Planet X30044 extensively. Satellites and land rovers have taken many samples for lab analysis over the last three years. Water, oxygen, nitrogen, carbon - all the things they need there to survive. The land and topography are similar to Colorado, a little on the dry side, but still containing plenty of lands for them to irrigate and harvest. The lifeforms there are small - no known predators, which is always a bonus. 

In the event that there are predators (a prospect Rey tries very hard not to contemplate), they have been given a cache of weapons. Weapons and ballistics training was her least favourite class at the Academy. She is a shit shot, but apparently, Matt performed quite well in that area. He seems like he could handle himself - he is certainly built as though he could. 

“It’s on.”

Rey nearly jumps right out of her seat. She turns to him before she can think not to, her hand flying up to her chest. He stands at the threshold of the cockpit, a tall, morose figure that is pointedly staring at a point over her head. 

“Okay,” she squeaks. “That’s good. Um, thank you.”

His jaw shifts, but he does not reply. 

“Well, we should strap in. Liftoff will be in ten minutes.”

He hesitates for a second, eyes flicking to hers before quickly looking away. 

“Right.”

His voice is little more than bark and she nervously watches him as he takes his seat again. She turns back to the controls but when Akbar’s voice comes over the transmitter that they are to start their engines, she forgets about her uneasiness for a little while. 

This is it. They are going to lift off and then…

She will never see this planet again. She is going to fulfil humanity’s most important mission, to give hope and life to the human race once more. She will find Planet X30044, she will make her mark in history and bring salvation to her people. 

As it turns out, she never does see Earth again, but in every other way, she will be wrong. 

*

Liftoff begins in a smooth glide upwards.

In the beginning, Rey muses that it is much like riding one of the rollers in processing and taking her foot off the accelerator; simply letting the roller coast forward at a light, leisurely pace. The engines do most of the work; roughly five hundred feet below where she and Matt currently sit in the cockpit, the rockets firing off, and burning through mass amounts of fuel in the time it takes to pour a coffee. 

Rey monitors the computer’s readouts closely on a small monitor to the left of her seat. Matt remains utterly silent, his gloved hands gripping the armrests of his flight seat. He is supposed to be helping her monitor the engines, but she just does it herself. She wants eyes on everything, every item of the flight checklist mentally checked off. For now, she doesn't mind that he has been hands-off ever since they've begun lift off. 

She's nervous too, but in the way that she wants total control over every aspect of their flight. During training, she gained a reputation for being rather bossy. A control freak. Or a nagging bitch, as one of the other officers once referred to her as. 

So far, Matt doesn't seem to care too much about what she's doing, so long as the ship doesn't explode. 

“ _Falcon 8, everything is green on our end. How are the coolants holding up, over?_ ” Akbar’s voice crackles over the transmitter.

Without taking her eyes off the telemetry, Rey flicks the communication on. 

“Everything is operating within normal parameters, over,” she replies. 

“ _Keep us updated. Radio back when you have cleared the atmosphere, then prep for the jump. Over and out.”_

Next to her, she sees Matt stiffen, but again she just chalks it up to nerves.

Then, the rumbling begins - a steady roar that grows louder and more intense with each passing second. 

Rey takes a deep breath, glancing up at the hazy, poisoned skies, the colour of lemonade. She can’t see much of civilization (or what used to be civilization) from their location and she finds that she is glad for that. She already knows what it is at stake, she does not need that grim reminder. 

Matt coughs beside her and she turns to him at the sound. He looks _green._ Almost literally at that. 

“Are you okay?”

He glances at Rey and then seems to regret it because he closes his eyes and presses a hand to his stomach. 

“I’m fine,” he replies tightly. 

She draws back a little at the way his helmet makes his voice even deeper and slightly modulated. Crackling and sonorous. Even through the thick visor of his helmet, she can see beads of sweat running down his face. 

He has done test flights before - right?

The ship rattles as they exit the atmosphere and glide into the true blackness of space. The computer beeps serenely, indicating that they are going at the correct velocity to safely escape Earth’s gravitational pull. Just as the last remnants of the atmosphere clear away and the rattling of the ship abates, Rey loses her breath altogether. 

Space is not at all how she pictured it. 

There are no stars. It is just blackness outside their ship, an infinite vacuum of cold and dark. The sun glints off the viewport and her breath is cut into halves.

She has not seen the sun in a very long time.

Underground, they have UV lights during what is supposed to be daylight hours, to ensure everyone gets enough Vitamin D and doesn't go insane from sun deprivation. It still happens here and there, but at least with the UV lights, they get some version of the sun’s nourishing properties. 

All the UV lights in the world can never hold a candle to the real thing. 

“Wow,” Rey whispers. 

Matt glances at her but does not say anything. He still looks like he might throw up, but at least his pallor has improved somewhat. 

The sun is brilliant, a small speck of bright white light that glints and leaves behind red and green impressions against her eyelids. She is careful not to look too long, even though she suddenly feels ravenous for it. Twenty-four years - she has not seen the sun for _twenty-four years_. 

And now, she is about to leave this system forever. 

She feels it the moment gravity leaves them. Her hands move as though through water when she goes to do her checks on the fuselage and engines. She remembers this sensation well from the pool training. They have approximately ten seconds before - 

Below their feet, the counter gravity controls turn on automatically. 

Even though she is expecting it, her stomach shoots up to her throat at the sensation. She just hopes Matt doesn’t puke in his helmet. That would be rather unpleasant to deal with. 

“Can you warn me next time that’s going to happen?” Matt snaps at her. He swallows thickly, but still, he won’t meet her eyes. She thinks Matt would have sounded a lot snippier had he not been actively suppressing the urge to be sick. 

Rey huffs an annoyed breath at him, barely glancing in his direction before focusing on the controls. As she overrides the engines and takes control of steering, she silently gripes that it isn’t her fault he didn’t properly study the flight sequences. If he had, he would have known the gravity controls would turn on right after clearing the planet. He’s acting like he doesn’t…

She pauses, trying to surreptitiously peek over at him without him seeing her. He’s glaring up at the viewport, the crest of the Earth reflected across the glass visor of his helmet so she cannot see his expression properly. 

Slowly, she turns back to the controls with a tickle of unease running up her spine. 

He is acting like he doesn’t know what he is doing… _At all_. But that can’t be possible. How could he get all the way to the UK bunker and onto this ship without the proper training? Maybe the Americans do things differently, but she knows for a fact that they all went through the exact same training program since there really is no such thing as the US or the UK anymore. They’re all under the International Accord now, so…

The transmitter crackles to life, but Rey is not the only who jumps a little in her seat this time. Matt mutters unhappily under his breath, his hands folded together in his lap like he does not know what to do with them. 

“ _Falcon 8, why haven’t you begun the jump sequence?_ ”

Shit. Akbar sounds pissed. 

Thinking fast, Rey flips the communications switch. “Apologies Commander. The engines took a little longer cycling than anticipated.”

_Everything is fine. Matt must know what he is doing. He’s just nervous. Crabby and morose, but nervous._

Still, a little voice in the back of her head tells her that she shouldn’t make the jump yet. Once she does, there is no going back and…

Something feels off. _Matt_ feels off. 

“ _Alright, well begin your jump sequence now. The other shuttles are ready._ ”

Rey looks out the viewport and sure enough, she can see some of the other Falcons holding their positions. She feels it the moment Matt turns to her in his seat, his eyes like a lead weight against her skin. She’s hesitating and he knows it. 

_Fuck, fuck, fuck_. _What am I going to say? That my co-pilot is ignoring me? That’s he making me uncomfortable with his morose silence? That he what - hurt my ever-loving feelings by being an unresponsive lump of meat?_

She stares down at the transmitter and now it is _her_ that is sweating. This moment feels pivotal to her, but she cannot for the life of her figure out why. Once they make the jump, they will only have one more transmission with Earth to confirm they’ve completed the first leg of the journey - somewhere in the orbit of Neptune - and then they are on their own. She will be completely alone with Matt and...

 _Something isn’t right,_ the voice of instincts whispers. 

“Everything okay?”

She _almost_ flinches. She turns to Matt with a tight smile, finding his eyes slightly narrowed and his pallor even paler than it was before. 

“Yep. I think the coolant’s just lagging a little. You did your checks right?”

Matt does not reply right away, those dark eyes boring into hers for a long, uncomfortable moment. Then he looks away and is it her imagination, or did he just take a sharp, nervous breath?

“I checked them,” he says curtly. 

“ _Falcon 8, what the fuck is the-”_

“Taking off now,” Rey interrupts Akbar on the transmitter.

She shakes out her hand and then grips the yoke, tucking away that small kernel of doubt. It’s just nerves. Has to be. What does she think Matt is - an Alpha spy here to sabotage her ship and what? Kill himself too in the process? Ridiculous. 

As Rey begins pressing down on the throttle, she takes a deep breath and takes her last glimpse of Earth. 

“Hang tight,” she warns Matt, “this part is going to be hairy.”

“Lovely,” he mutters to himself. “You know what you’re doing, right?”

And suddenly it clicks. 

Maybe Matt is not behaving suspiciously at all. Maybe Matt just doesn’t like that his pilot and mission captain is a woman. He’s nervous she is going to fuck this up. The fact that she is equally nervous of that does not matter though because suddenly she is furious. How did she not see it before?

She prickles a little, turning to shoot him a glare. 

“I am more than qualified, thank you.”

“Whatever you say,” he replies, all crackle and baritone.

Despite herself, Rey shivers, even though the environmental controls of her suit are functioning properly. It’s just nerves, she tells herself again. Everything is going to be fine. 

*

The stars scatter into trillions of stretched out white lines, spindled into the centre of their vision. Then, they are sucked back into their seats so hard, Rey feels like she has been kicked in the back by a horse. 

Unlike their take off from the Earth, the engines hum serenely which she finds disorienting considering how fucking fast they’re travelling. Their velocity crosses the threshold of the sound barrier and then they are breaching through space, trundling along at a breezy 299,792 kilometres per second, far exceeding the speed of light. 

Next to her, Matt takes a long shuddering breath. She cannot really blame him. 

Jumps have been tested before, of course. On simulators. They are amongst the first humans in history to test it out for real, though. 

And Rey is…

Ecstatic. She is terrified too, of course. When they first breached light speed, in a sonic clap of radiation particles and brilliant light, she almost shit herself. But now she is beholden to the wonders of the galaxy and nothing or no one can take that away from her. Whatever comes after this, she will always have this image in her head. 

Beams of white, blue and pink light, stretched to infinity. The cockpit is a dazzle of light, the telemetry running just as it should be and the ship only rattling a little. Every time she closes her eyes, she sees bright spots dancing on her eyelids. A temporary tattoo of the jump. 

“How are the engines?” Rey asks a little breathlessly. She figures she can’t be blamed for a little awe in these circumstances. 

“Engine 2 was overheating a little, but it’s returned to normal.” Well, that certainly _sounds_ like he knows a little more about his job than she thought he did. It also doesn’t hurt that he sounds just as awed as she does. 

She glances at him, catching the way his eyes have widened and the severe lines around his mouth have softened. He looks almost peaceful. Soft and dreamy and…

Vulnerable. 

Rey looks away quickly, frowning a little. 

That was a strange thing to think about someone. She doesn’t have time to analyze it further before the course proximity alert starts going off. 

They’re almost to Neptune.

*

Earth is blue. A perfect little pearl in space.

But, Rey quickly discovers, Earth really isn’t that blue at all. 

Neptune is the antithesis of that colour. Brilliant, cobalt, and _huge_. She stares up at it for a moment before taking off her helmet and waving her hair out. The Falcon’s environmental controls have kicked on now that they are out of the jump. They will have to wait thirty minutes for the engines to cycle until they can complete the next part of the journey. 

And things have once again fallen awkwardly silent in the cockpit of Falcon 8. 

His oxygen tank _swooshes_ quietly when Matt releases his helmet next, but even that sound seems too loud to her. She attempts to ignore her own discomfort, wincing only a little at the slight acrid note of the oxygen purifiers (no doubt stored in their tanks for over a decade) and tries to focus on the task at hand - flying this small metal capsule through the harsh and unforgiving vacuum of space. 

But it’s hard to ignore something (or someone) when they are ignoring you so thoroughly that every bit of noise you make - even just breathing for Christ’s sake - feels like you are interrupting the Holy Sacrament.

But she has to start delegating to him though if they are to have any hope of reaching their targetted planet on time. Taking a pacifying breath, she goes to do just that. 

“Can you -” 

Only, Rey cuts herself off, her eyes first narrowing and then going wide. The slight bitter stench of the oxygen purifiers fades away, only to be replaced by a scent that has no business being on this ship at all. 

_Sweet._

That is the first thing her befuddled mind registers. A sweet creamy scent takes over the cockpit, almost like… pastries? Or custard? But there is an earthiness to it as well. Like birch or…

Rey squeaks when she finds Matt staring at her again. His jaw is clenched tight, his gaze flat and assessing. 

“Do you… do you smell that?” She doesn’t know why she is whispering, only that to speak louder feels inherently dangerous. 

Matt’s eyes dart away from hers and he swallows thickly. 

“I’ll go check the cargo. Maybe one of the canisters of food spilt open.”

“Do you really think we would be able to smell that all the way up here?” 

She doesn’t mean to sound incredulous, but that rationale seems implausible. She only noticed the smell when they took off their helmets. Maybe she is getting space sickness. She doesn’t _feel_ sick, but why else would she be smelling dessert pastries? 

Though that doesn’t explain how Matt smells it too. 

“What else would it be?” he says a tad too waspishly. Before she can answer, he tosses his helmet on the floor. “I’ll go check. You stay here and make sure we’re good to keep going.”

She blinks at him and sinks back into her seat when he gets up and storms out of the cockpit. Geesh, it wasn’t like she insulted his mother or something. 

Then, her eyes narrow. 

He just gave her an order. That bastard. _She_ is the mission captain, not him. She is just about to get up out of her seat to remind him of this when the transmitter crackles to life once more. 

“ _Falcon 8, what is your position_?” 

Rey curses silently and thumbs the transmitter switch. 

“We have arrived to Neptune, over,” she replies. 

From somewhere down the hall of the cockpit, she hears a dull thunk. Turning to look over her shoulder, all she can see is the shadowy corridor and the narrow strip of lights illuminating the floor. Hmm, maybe one of the canisters did fall over. That strange sweet smell is already starting to dissipate, making the air a little easier to breathe. 

“ _Excellent. All of the other ships have reached their first checkpoint successfully, over,_ ” Akbar informs her. 

With one last lingering look at the corridor, Rey turns back to the transmitter, her expression clearing. “That’s great news, Commander. Would you like a status report, over?”

“ _Not needed. We can see all your telemetry on our end. How are you and Samberg holding up, over_?”

Rey almost snorts. 

“We’re doing fine. No space sickness, or inertia disease. Our suits are operating normally and the enviro controls on the ship are keeping regulated... Sackler is a little quiet, sir. Honestly, I am not… sure…”

Rey trails off, her gaze going hazy around the edges. There is a tickle at the back of her head and that kernel of unease flares as brightly as stars in a jump. 

Because Commander Akbar did not just say Sackler, did he? 

It comes back to her; the little joke Matt told her all those months ago when they spoke over the transmission. 

_The last name’s Samberg - like the comedian, although I can’t promise I’ll be as funny as him. I can do a hell of a rap to Threw it On the Ground, though._

“ _Kenobi, are you still there, over_?” Akbar barks over the transmitter. 

She leans forward, sweat beading at her temples and her hands suddenly shaky. 

“What did you say Matt’s name was, sir?” she demands in a choked rasp. 

The other end goes deathly silent for a long moment. 

“ _Kenobi_ ,” Akbar begins warily, “ _are you sure you’re alright? You’ve had the mission briefing for months now, you should know -_ ”

“Just tell me,” she says frantically. She peers over her shoulder but the corridor is still empty. Shouldn’t he have been back by now?

“ _Samberg_ ,” Akbar replies with exasperation. " _His name is Matthew Samberg from the California bunker. Is everything alright up there?_ ”

Rey does not really know how to answer that. All she knows with absolute certainty is that Matt did not give her the name Samberg. Not _this_ Matt anyways. He did not crack his little joke with her because _this_ Matt is about as sunny as a funeral march. 

The name he had given her was Sackler. Which is close to Samberg - close enough for someone who might have forgotten their alias. Close enough for someone who figured out that she forgot the correct name too. 

Motherfucker.

Alarm bells are going off in her head and though they are far too late now, she cannot help but bemoan the fact that she didn't listen to her instincts sooner. 

“Sir, something is wrong,” Rey begins but that is as far as she gets before she feels something cold and round pressed against her temple. That sweet smell returns as well, only now there is a slightly bitter note to it.

Like burned pie crust, of all damned things. 

Her stomach drops to her toes, but she wisely does not move a muscle. She knows exactly what is pressed against her head. 

“ _Kenobi? Respond immediately, over,_ ” Akbar says, but then a familiar arm reaches past Rey and flicks off the transmitter. 

The cockpit is awash in silence once more. Behind her, Matt - or whoever the fuck he is - presses the gun more firmly against her temple. 

“It’s time for us to talk,” he says quietly. 

Rey closes her eyes and mutters a wooden, “Fuck.”


	3. Collide

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Her whole body begins to shake uncontrollably as she pieces it all together. Her ship wasn’t the only target. Of course it wasn’t. Somehow, whoever he is working with, they have managed to infiltrate some, if not all, of the other ships. Poe, the other officers - they have no idea. 
> 
> She has to warn them. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning - This chapter contains graphic violence between our two main protagonists. Rey does most of the damage here (hehe) - but these kids are not friends at this point. Just want to put that out there. 
> 
> This fic is largely Action/Adventure and a survival story at its core, so there will be lots of gritty scenes (though thankfully these two don't get quite as physical as this chap). 
> 
> Just a friendly warning if that kind of thing bothers you. :)

“Get up. _Slowly_. I don’t want to shoot you.” 

The command in his voice is unmistakable. How didn’t she see it before? His massive build, his perennial glare, his hesitation to obey every command she has given him on this mission, his surly attitude and -

His voice. His fucking voice. 

She should have known what he is the moment she set eyes on him. 

_Fuck, fuck, shit._

“Am I going to have to ask you again?” Matt says to her in an eerily low tone. 

Rey still can’t see him with the way she is turned towards the controls. For a brief instant, she has half a mind to surprise him. To spin around in her seat and knee him in the balls. 

But he has a gun. 

He has a gun and he outweighs her by at least a hundred pounds. She has no idea what his reflexes are like, but if all his dominating attributes and that ominously sweet scent pervading the entire cockpit have tipped her off even in the _slightest_ , then she is willing to bet his reflexes far outmatch hers. 

Not that she has much to go on. He is the first Alpha she has ever met. An abhorrence, a criminal and likely a murderer - at least according to every rumour she has ever heard, which are all now flying through her mind at light speed. 

_They reek of pheromones. That’s how you know there’s one around. I hear Omegas stink too, but Alphas are the worst._

_They’re rapists. They don’t care what they’re fucking. I’ve heard stories, Kenobi. Sometimes, when they’re feral, they’ve been known to fuck Betas to death. Betas aren’t built to take knots you know, but Alphas don’t care..._

_I heard one ripped a guy’s arm off on the Antarctic outpost and used it to beat the other guards to death._

_They’re aggressive animals who will tear you from limb to limb if you look at them the wrong way._

_Rapists - all of them. There is only one thing on an Alpha’s mind, chaps, and that’s his knot._

Rey feels rather like vomiting in that moment. 

He must be an Alpha. He’s a fucking _giant_ and he’s got this dangerous air about him, and oh, why couldn’t she have fucking listened to her gut for one fucking second longer? She knew there was something off about him and now…

Is he going to rape her? _Kill_ her? Steal the ship and do god knows what with it?

 _Just get up and do what he says,_ she tells herself when the silence has stretched on for far too long. _Otherwise your brains are going to be all over the viewport and you won’t get another chance. Because you might be able to trick him. Just not in here, not right now. Wait until his guard is down._

“Be smart, Rey. Don’t turn this into a bad situation.” His voice is a deep timber and he almost sounds… regretful. 

Not that she really believes his tone, or anything else he might have to say. Somehow, through resources and means she does not even want to know about, he conned his way into the UK bunker and onto her spaceship. That’s pretty impressive for a feral beast who only has knots on the brain. 

She would be wise not to underestimate him. 

Rey pushes out a shivery breath and then raises her hands above her hand so he can see them. He has not asked her to do this, which she might have found surprising and perhaps a little foolish at any other time. Isn’t it in Hostage Taking 101 that your hostage has to raise their hands so you can see they’re not holding a weapon?

She does not linger on this small detail for very long. She is far too fixated on the gun pressed against her head than she is concerned with stopping to take note of his apparent inexperience. 

Rey rises from her seat, going as slowly as possible so as not to suddenly trigger him. Or his gun. 

“Good,” he says when she has fully risen. “Now face me.”

The pressure of the gun is gone then. She slowly turns around - and very nearly falters at what she finds.

She expected him to be smug. She expected a smirk, a vicious whack to the head, or even for him to gloat. Maybe for his eyes to be all black and glittery, like in all the terrible stories she's heard about Alphas. 

Rather than any of those things, when she turns to “Matt”, it is to discover that he looks distinctly nervous, if not outright terrified. He is pale, sweat lining his temples and upper lip. His eyes jump from hers to a point over her head, just as he has done for the entire duration of their journey out here. And they are their normal shade of brown - not black or glittery or full of malice. The gun shakes minutely in his grasp, though he seems to realize she can see this and he tightens his grip. 

Does he feel… guilty?

That notion gives Rey pause, despite the very real danger here, but when Matt gestures at her with the gun and starts slowly advancing towards her, it is thoroughly impressed upon her just how large this man is. Just one of his hands could snap her arm like a twig. 

Rey struggles not to beg for her life. She doesn’t want to die. She wants very much to survive this encounter even if the odds of that are extremely small. But she doesn't want to show him even a modicum of weakness either. 

Alphas prey on weakness. Everyone knows that. 

“What do you want?” Rey hates herself for the noticeable tremor in her voice, for how transparent her fear must seem to him. 

Matt looks like he has not even heard her speak, which is pretty much in keeping with this whole doomed trip. He folds his lips together, eyes jumping from hers to the wall behind her, and she suddenly worries that it won’t be anger or cruelty that will cause him to pull the trigger but sheer nerves. His left eye twitches every few seconds and she finds she cannot look away from it, like her fate depends on that minute muscle spasm. 

“Go to the wall and turn around.”

Oh, she does not want to do that. She does not remotely want to do that. But she doesn’t have much of a choice, does she?

He must see the naked fear on her face because his eye stops twitching and the grim resolve etched into the lines of his face dissolves, just a little. He lowers the gun, if only incrementally, his lips folding together once more before he raises his chin at her. 

“It is not my intention to hurt you,” he murmurs. “The pilots aren’t supposed to be harmed.”

Rey stares back at him for a moment, before her expression morphs to horrified comprehension. 

“The other ships,” she rasps through paper-dry lips. 

Matt seems to realize what he has just said and grounds out a harsh, “ _Fuck._ ”

She ignores him. 

“You - there are _more_ of you. You’re going to steal all the ships and...” Rey draws away from him like he is something disgusting she has just found on the sole of her shoe. “What are you planning to do with us? Because there is no way in hell I will ever help you or your kind.”

Her whole body begins to shake uncontrollably as she pieces it all together. Her ship wasn’t the only target. Of course it wasn’t. Somehow, whoever he is working with, they have managed to infiltrate some, if not all, of the other ships. Poe, the other officers - they have no idea. 

She has to warn them. 

“I said go to the wall and turn around.” He raises the gun towards her and she doesn’t know who flinches harder, her or him. “Right now, Rey.”

They stare at each other from across the cramped space in the cockpit and she realizes that if he binds her, or knocks her out, any chance she might have to warn the others - to even have a sliver of chance of survival herself - will be gone. 

Below their feet, the engines cycle through their last phase of refuel. She can feel it, the way the ship shudders when the fuselages disengage. Once the engine has completed its last cycle, the flight path will be automatically entered into the computer and then they’ll be too far out of range for her to warn anyone. She has no idea if Matt knows how to fly a ship, but based on his behaviour so far, she would hazard a guess that he doesn’t the steering column from his elbow. 

Maybe that’s why she is still alive. He needs her. Once the engines finish cycling, he could make her fly them - well - _anywhere._ Perhaps even to rendezvous with his _people_ , if one can even call them that. 

Then she will be well and truly fucked. 

_Think, goddamnit. Think!_

Then, because she does not know what else to do, she asks him, “Did you kill Matt? The real Matt, I mean.”

His expression hardens and for one incredulous moment, she thinks that he is insulted by her question. She almost bursts into laughter, but she knows if she does he might really hurt her. 

“Of course not,” he growls between clenched teeth. 

His scent changes. Definitely more like burnt pie crust now, with a slight spicy note to it. Cinnamon? Nutmeg? Why does this motherfucker smell like pastries? Why is this her life right now?

_Focus Rey…_

She glances away from him, her gaze sweeping across the cockpit in search of something, _anything_ within arm’s reach that she might be able to use as a weapon. A few feet away, Matt’s helmet lays on the floor. And beyond that, on his seat, she spots the hypospanner and datapad. None of these things will mortally wound him, but if she can turn the hypospanner’s electrical component on…

“Then where is he?” she demands with far more bravado than she feels. If she can just inch a little to the left, if she is quick…

“This isn’t the time for twenty questions,” he snaps at her. He starts shuffling closer, his imposing height making her feel smaller and smaller with each passing second. “Go to the wall and turn around, or I’ll put you there myself.”

“I think you did kill him. Isn’t that what you lot do?”

Sweat beads on the nape of her neck and along her temples. She wishes her hair was up and out of her face for this. She wishes she was still in bed, about to beat her alarm like she does every morning, full of anxious nerves and fluttering excitement for the journey to come. 

But she isn’t. She is here, with this monster, and she has one shot to get this right. 

Matt sways on his feet, his lips parting, before his eyes narrow and his scent transforms from burnt pie crust to something far more potent. His scent is almost metallic now, like the copper pipes that carry hot water down to the bunker. Bitter and eye watering. 

Oh, he is furious. 

“ _I didn’t fucking kill him_!” he screams at her, his face going red and his expression morphing into something ugly and demented. 

She jumps at the ferocity of his tone, playing into the fear a bit more than she feels so that he thinks her cowed. She _is_ cowed, but she is not going to let herself focus on that right now. His flight seat is only a foot away. She just has to grab the hypospanner and change the setting. She just has to hope he is too surprised to react in time. 

“Okay,” she whispers quietly. “Okay, I’ll turn around.”

He draws up to his full height and right before she turns around, she notices that his eyes have changed colour after all. Only, they are _green_. Not black. Not glittering. A wild, untamed shade of moss like the pictures she has seen in books of what the rainforests of African and Central American once looked like. 

Rey’s breath catches, but she is operating on autopilot now. Pure instinct and survival. Who gives a fuck if his eyes turn pink and flash little rainbows at her? This is her chance. 

She turns away from him, only she is not turning towards the wall, but to the seat. He does not appear to notice at first, his shoulders heaving as he fights to get control over himself. When he runs an agitated hand through his hair, his gaze flicking away from her for a millisecond, she lunges. 

Her hands are so sweaty that the hypospanner nearly slips out of her grasp. She’s almost convinced that she dropped it anyway, so great is her fear, that she releases a strangled cry of distress.

Behind her, Matt makes a startled sound - no more than a deep, angry growl. She skitters away from him, tripping over his helmet and knocking into the navigation station. The controls start blaring shrilly, but a strange white noise has filled her ears, like a nest of bees.

Panic, pure and simple panic, quickly overrides all her senses. 

Then, as her fingers close around the small cylindrical device, what feels very much like a massive boulder collides into her back and sends her flying into the chair. 

Rey crashes in a painful heap with Matt right on top of her. She cries out again only this time in _pain_. Her ribs feel like they’ve been broken, her nose smashing painfully off the co-pilot’s yoke, causing the computer to blare in warning. The dials on the control board flash red, alighting the entire cockpit in dire crimson. Her hair has fallen in her face and her arms are pinned underneath her, so she can't see which controls she has accidentally engaged. 

It doesn’t really matter anyway.

Not now, not with the way Matt is crushing her into the chair. She is far too preoccupied with his very warm, very _heavy_ weight draped over her back and legs. She wheezes a pained breath, the armrests digging into her chest and ribs. His hand slams over her face, though he is likely aiming for her shoulder to restrain her. 

So, she does the only thing she can do. She _bites_. 

Matt roars, blood oozing down either side of her face as she clamps down as hard as she can. His other hand grips her by the hair and yanks her head up at a brutal angle. She screams when some of her hair tears from her scalp, effectively releasing his hand. 

“ _Motherfucker_!” she shrieks at him, though later she will not be able to recall that she said anything to him at all. 

Only seconds have passed but it already feels like he has been lying on top of her for hours. It is _unbearable_. Claustrophobia sets in, making her scream and thrash underneath him in pure panic. 

“ _Stop!_ ” he shouts at her, like she's some pulling Omega who will just obey his commands. “Fucking - _stop it Rey_!”

She snarls at him like a rabid dog and bucks hard enough to almost throw him off of her. She would never have been able to do that under normal circumstances since the man weighs as much as a fucking mountain, but with the adrenaline coursing through her veins, she is almost mad with fear. She has to get him off of her. 

If he knocks her out, if he gets the hypospanner, if he, if he, _if he_...

Distantly, she hears a muted clang. The gun has dropped on the floor in all their struggling but it might as well be back on Earth for all the good it will do her. He has her mashed into the seat, her lungs and ribs flaring in white hot agony from where they are pressed into the armrests. Black dots dance before her vision as she hyperventilates, wildly struggling against his grasp. Her heart slams against her ribcage, sweat dripping into her eyes as she gasps for air.

The ship’s computer continues to screech in the cockpit, so loudly that she cannot hear what Matt is shouting at her anymore. She coughs, blood pouring down the back of her throat from her injured nose. 

And finally, Rey prises one arm free. 

Somehow she manages not to drop the hypospanner and she brings it before her face, desperately spinning the little dial on the side to change the setting. He must see what she is doing because he tries to grab it from her, his hand dripping blood all over her face and arm. She snaps at him again, her teeth clicking together as she keeps up her desperate struggle against him, before reaching over her shoulder and mindlessly scratching at anything she can reach. He shouts again, her nails tearing a bloody line from his right brow down to his chin. 

Her stomach turns over but she doesn't dare stop now. 

While he curses and presses a hand to his bloody face, she finally finds the right goddamned setting. Like the last life raft in a raging sea, Rey sees the tiny blue light activate on at the tip of the hypospanner and gives a rasping cry of victory.

"You crazy bitch!" Matt shouts at her but she doesn't give him a chance to finish that thought. 

Acting on pure adrenaline, she rears her head back and headbutts him directly in the face. He makes a choked sound of both surprise and pain. Blood patters against the back of her neck but she can't find it within herself to feel even any satisfaction. 

She is just _go, go, go, get him the fuck off me._

She flips the hypospanner in her hand and stabs it into his arm.

" _Fuck_!" He screams so loudly, her ears ring with it. His grip on her hair loosens enough that she gets her other arm free. 

She has just enough room to twist back to him a little. Then she brings the hypospanner up in a vicious arc, slamming it into his exposed neck and turning the electrical output to the strongest setting. 

His entire body seizes against hers, his eyes rolling and his teeth gnashing together. Some of the shock transfers to her as well, but she was prepared for that. She groans with pain, her muscles locking together as some of the charge goes through her too. She has just enough strength to push him off of her. 

He crashes to the floor in a pile of oversized limbs. 

Breathing in staggering gasps, with her hair pulled back in a cloudy tangle from where he grabbed it and her face covered in both their blood, she sunfishes off of his chair and scrambles backward against the control board, unknowingly mashing buttons along the way. 

He moans on the floor, somehow still conscious, but before he can grab onto her boot, she lurches to his helmet on the floor and raises it over his head. She brings it down, again and again, bashing him over the head three times before sanity reasserts itself. 

Belatedly, Rey realizes she is sobbing. Her breath takes her in painful hiccups, tears streaming down her face as the sounds of the world slowly return to her. Her ribs ache fiercely, all she can taste and smell is blood, and her throat feels like she has swallowed a cup of glass, but… she is alive. 

More importantly, Matt appears to be unconscious. 

He does not stir. His helmet - now covered in blood - lies on the floor next to him. He looks just as bad as she does when she pushes away from him, his head cut open near his temple and a long ugly gash across his face from where she scratched him. The arch of his nose is no longer straight. Dark bruises are already beginning to bloom around his eyes. His chest rises and falls in shaky breaths, so she knows he is still alive. Somehow, she still has it in her to be relieved by that. 

Suddenly, she turns to the side and vomits all over the floor. 

“Oh my god,” she whispers pathetically, heaving and whimpering in pain, “oh my god.”

Wiping gingerly at her lips, she looks at Matt again, almost expecting to find him lurching to his feet like the Alpha monsters in all the stories she has heard. 

But he remains on the floor, utterly motionless. 

Belatedly, she realizes that the controls at the helm are blaring. She lurches across the cockpit, wincing at every jostle to her ribs. Definitely broken. Perhaps more than one. She’ll have to get the med kit at some point. Maybe BB8 can…

Oh god - BB8. Did Matt even turn the droid on? Or did he sabotage it?

Rey does not have time to worry over the droid though because then she remembers about the other ships. She has to warn them. God, it might already be too late.

She ignores the bleating control panel, hardly noticing it when the ship lurches unexpectedly. She wipes blood and vomit from her chin as she engages the comms. 

“Commander Akbar,” she croaks, sounding completely unlike herself. “Are you there? This is Falcon 8, over.”

“ _Kenobi_!” Akbar shouts almost immediately, and for the first time since she met the onerous, seasoned commander, he sounds terrified. “ _What the hell is going on up there_?”

Rey glances back at Matt, the hypospanner clutched tightly in her hands as blood oozes down her face. 

“Matt is not who he says he is."

Red lights flash throughout the cockpit and she gives a worried glance to the navigation station when the ship lurches again. The fuel cycle will be completed by now - but the ship shouldn’t be shuddering like this. Unless, somehow, she engaged a new flight path…

“ _Kenobi?_ ” Akbar growls warningly. 

Rey turns back to the comm with a spark of panic rekindling in her guts. She has to warn him first - then she can figure whatever the fuck the ship is deciding to do. She’ll have to find somewhere to put Matt too. Maybe in the cargo hold - there are larger canisters in there. She can hold him in one of those until she figures out what to do with him. 

“We had an… altercation. I subdued him, but something he said made me think that there are others infiltrating the other ships.”

“ _Who_?” he barks back immediately. 

“I don’t know.” Rey hesitates and then breathes out, “Matt - or whoever he is - he’s an Alpha, sir. I think he’s a part of some kind of terrorist network. I don’t know why they want the ships but you have to warn the others. They are -”

Rey cuts herself off from speech, crying out when the ship shudders violently. Akbar yells something at her over the comm but she can no longer hear him. Static interference cuts their transmission short and then suddenly _all_ Rey can hear is the engines engaging. The secondary rockets roar and while she scrambles to check the computer, she sees the very last thing she wants to see in that moment. 

The telemetry readouts have changed. Their course was adjusted manually - likely when Matt tackled her against the control panel. She mashed so many buttons, she has no idea where the hell the ship is taking them. 

“ _Fuck_!” Rey shouts, attempting to shut off the engines before it’s too late. Through the viewscreen, Neptune slowly revolves out of view as the ship turns about and prepares to breach space. 

They’re going into a jump in the next twenty seconds unless she shuts off the engines. 

She reaches for the yoke, attempting to switch over primary helm control from the computer back to her station, when a bloody hand closes over her forearm. She looks up - and _up_ \- and finds the battered and utterly _furious_ face of a pissed off Alpha looking down at her. He has the gun in his hand again and even though it’s not pointed at her, she can feel the violent turn of energy in the air between them. 

When did he get up? How did she not hear him?

These questions pass her in a daze of exhausted shock, but soon any plans for action are thrusted away from them both.

Rey does not have time to reach for the hypospanner in her lap, or to correct their course, or to take helm control away from the computer - or for any of the hundreds of things that fly through her mind in that moment. Matt does not have time to act on the very apparent anger she can feel emanating off of him, nor does he have time to take his seat as the ship ramps up with enough thrust to launch them across the galaxy. 

The ship rattles and then goes utterly still before the stars begin to stretch to infinity. They both look out the viewport at the same time and in the second before the ship launches into the jump, to parts unknown, they are both held in a unison of dread. 

And then the cockpit is lit up once more, all white, blue and pink. 


	4. Other Worlds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She looks past him to the viewport. And her jaw drops. 
> 
> The satellite images and unmanned missions to the Alpha Quadrant displayed planetary and solar systems much like the ones of Earth. There were three planets in the system that were supposed to be charted for - X30044 and two others that could not host life. Each was a pretty light blue. X30044 had gentle rings of space glass straddling its equator, not unlike the rings of Uranus. 
> 
> What Rey sees now resembles nothing of those images. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What occurs here is just a series of unfortunate events for our protagonists. And it only gets better! :D For anyone interested, the song "Other Worlds" by Bassnectar & Dorfex.Bos was a great inspiration for this chap. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy, next update we'll get to explore this mysterious new world Rey and "Matt" has discovered.

Once, when Rey was little, her parents took her to a farm. It is one of the few memories she has of them that has remained clear over the intervening years. 

The scent of manure, tart and humid in the spring air; dewy crystals scattering with the stomping of her boots through tall grass and seeding dandelions clutched in her fist. Her mother’s pretty auburn hair shining in the sun and her soft, lilting voice calling her name whenever she strayed too far away. 

The one part of that day that has always stood out to her the most is the horses. Their fur had felt strange; coarse, sharp and spiky. She should have been frightened of them, with how tall they stood above her and their strong unpredictable limbs. Her brother certainly was. But she found them fascinating, these giant, boxy creatures with large, intelligent eyes and their soft whickering.

As she petted the horses, her parents had not noticed that her arm had become tangled in one of the reins. It was a farmhand who had run over and quickly disentangled her, likely saving her from a rather nasty injury. 

However, it was what he said directly afterwards that stuck with her for the rest of her life. 

“You’re lucky, lass. If Bucky had gotten spooked, he would have torn your arm right off,” the farmhand had brusquely told her, likely thinking this little joke hilarious when all he had accomplished was traumatizing a very impressionable young girl. 

For weeks afterwards, she had nightmares of having her arm torn off. Over and over again, her arm getting wrapped up in the reins and that beautiful, lovely creature taking off without any warning, ripping her poor arm and leaving her gasping and sweating in her bed. 

Rey has not thought about that buried memory in quite some time. It occurs to her now, as Falcon 8 launches into the jump, in one of those startling moments of clarity when each breath, each flash-frame of a blink, each rasp of her flight suit on her seat becomes hallmarks of the passing seconds. An etching of bleary trauma and frayed nerves. 

That is, right before she experiences what it might feel like to _actually_ have her arm torn off. 

The rockets fire and then the ship is careening into a breach through space, hurtling along the jump with the same ease as the first time. It would almost be peaceful was it not for several cascading factors that quickly compile into one of the worst moments of Rey’s life. 

Matt towers over her, gripping her forearm and on the verge of speaking. Perhaps to tell her that she is going to pay for breaking his nose, scratching his face to ribbons and bashing his head in with his helmet, but who’s to _really_ say? Certainly not her, or him, because the flight path that they have accidentally entered into the computer during their short and brutal tussle is now taking over the entire situation for them. She has no idea where they are going - they might finish the jump inside a moon, with the ship and themselves exploding into a trillion little pieces. 

And she has no way of stopping it now. No way of knowing if her warning to Akbar was successful. No way of knowing if she is going to survive the next sixty seconds, or end up as so much space dust. 

But, quite abruptly, all these precious little worries cease to exist. 

Matt is still holding onto her arm when the ship enters the jump. Matt is _also_ not sitting in his flight seat. Which means, when the ship accelerates with the thrust of a well-oiled mousetrap, the _only_ thing preventing him from splattering on the back wall of the cockpit like a gigantic bag of jelly is the hand currently holding onto her arm. 

Which is all well and good, until it really, _really_ isn’t. 

The cockpit fills with pretty white, pink and blue light, and then many things happen at once. Matt’s feet leave the floor, and then he is floating horizontally across the cockpit, caught in the ship’s velocity like a bad imitation of Superman - but only if Superman was a crazed Alpha screaming and swearing so profusely, he would make a sailor blush. As the ship reaches maximum velocity, that is when Matt's hand tightens on her forearm, clinging onto her for dear life and preventing said splattering against the wall. 

At the same time, a loud _crunch_ fills Rey’s ears and in the second before she experiences the worst pain in her life, she just thinks her ears have popped. 

They haven’t, but her shoulder sure has. Right out of its socket like a jack-in-the-box. 

It all happens so quickly that she doesn't know her shoulder is dislocated until she is already screaming. Inertia presses her back in her seat so hard that her broken ribs _sear_ in agony - but oh, that is nothing, _nothing_ , compared to what happens to her shoulder. 

Rey screams and screams until her voice is gone, until blackness webs in her vision, only for her to scream some more. Clutching on her arm like the last leaf on a hurricane blown tree, Matt roars profanities across the cockpit - about her, about space travel in general, but yeah, mostly about her. 

“- _you stupid, crazy bitch, stop the ship! STOP FOR FUCK’S SAKE_ -”

As though she has any hope of stopping anything now. As though she even _could_ in her state. 

Sadly for Matt, or for her really, she is well beyond understanding human speech at this point. The pretty starline in the viewport does not exist to her anymore, nor does Matt’s increasingly frantic and colourful profanities. 

There is only pure and utter agony. 

He shouts something else at her that she is not even remotely in the right state of mind to hear and then the pressure _intensifies_. It won’t be until later that she realizes he is trying to pull himself to her headrest so he can grasp onto that instead, but in doing so, he is pulling even _harder_ on her arm. It feels like someone has ground up a bunch of glass, poured it into her shoulder socket and then struck her directly on that spot with a hammer. 

She is going to pass out from the pain. She is going to burst into a thousand agonizing pieces. Her arm and shoulder are on fire, her throat is raw from screaming and this is it, her heart is going to just give out but then - 

Matt lets go of her arm to grasp her headrest, just as they come out of the jump. He falls bodily to the floor with a tremulous groan, and Rey succumbs to the blackness encroaching upon her.

She blissfully passes out. 

*

“Wake up, goddamned you. This is not my life… _fuck_!”

Loud banging startles Rey awake. Sounds a lot like someone punching something - quite hard at that.

She groans, her eyelashes fluttering and her mouth tasting like someone has poured dirty cat litter into it. She sits up and immediately screams - or at least, she _tries_ to scream, but her throat is too dry for any sound to come out. The pain is consuming - she can’t think or feel beyond it. Her shoulder is on fire, her ribs ache, and she can’t fucking _think._ There was something she was supposed to be worried about. Something important but...

Her seat turns, jostling her shoulder, and she cries out again in misery. 

“Hey - _knock it off_. You need to wake up for fuck’s sake.”

She growls over his voice because suddenly she remembers exactly where she is and exactly who is attempting to not-so-nicely awaken her. When she cracks her eyes open, Matt’s wild, bruised face is there to greet her. 

He looks fucking terrible and she is glad for it. 

“ _Bastard_ ,” she spits at him, wincing and moaning at the pain in her arm. “Leave me alone!” 

He shakes his head when her head droops forward and rudely grabs her by the jaw. 

“No you fucking don’t,” he barks at her angrily. “You have to stay awake, goddamnit-”

“Fuck off you monster."

She groans, trying to push him away from her. She just wants to pass out again; her shoulder is beginning to _throb_ and she can’t take it anymore. It’s his fault she is in this state at all. 

He laughs without much humour. The black circles around his eyes are more pronounced and the blood on his fly dried and flaking. She is just wondering how long she was out for when he lets go of her jaw and leans forward to capture her gaze. 

“Yeah, well, we’re both gonna be fucked if you don’t pull your head out of your ass and help me. We’re coasting and I have no fucking idea what this shit says but we’re way off course. So _wake_ \- the _fuck_ \- _up_.”

“We’re… where?” she mutters blearily. 

Okay. Okay she has to stay awake. The pain is bad but she can do this. She can sleep after she figures this all out and _maybe_ murders Matt. They are… 

She looks past him to the viewport. And her jaw _drops._

The satellite images and unmanned missions to the Alpha Quadrant displayed planetary and solar systems much like the ones of Earth. There were three planets in the system that were _supposed_ to be charted for - X30044 and two others that could not host life. Each was a pretty light blue. X30044 had gentle rings of space glass straddling its equator, not unlike the rings of Uranus. 

What Rey sees now resembles nothing of those images. 

They are currently coasting through a sizable asteroid field, whose asteroids make Ceres, Vesta, Pallas, and Hygiea of the Solar System look like kid’s marbles. The fact they haven’t hit one yet is a fucking miracle. Beyond that, she can see at least five gas giants clustered close together, perhaps only 500,000 kilometres away. Their gravity wells alone are tugging the ship on a perilous drop through the asteroids. 

Without even looking at the telemetry, Rey knows they are nowhere near Planet X30044. They might not even be in the Alpha Quadrant for that matter. 

“Oh shit,” she says faintly. 

Matt raises his eyebrows like he came to this assessment years ago and she is a moron for just figuring this out now. She reaches for the yoke and then moans in pain, sweating beading down her face to mix with everything else on her skin. She won’t be able to pilot anything in the condition she is in. The pain is too great. 

Matt grabs the headrest of her chair as though sensing her thoughts and turns her back to him again, though he does so more gently than the first time. 

“ _What_?” she snaps at him angrily, her face screwed up as she cradles her arm. “I can’t just -”

“Shut. Up.”

Before she can say anything else, he goes to grab her arm. 

She shrinks away from him on instinct with a whimper of pain, eyes wide and horrified. What’s he going to do now - actually rip her arm off just like the Alphas she has heard all about? She is in no shape to fight back this time. 

He pulls back a little, eyes narrowing and his lips folding together. Looking up at him now, she realizes his eyes are brown again. That unnatural shade of green is gone, but she can’t find it within herself to feel any relief. He looks frantic and once again, his scent hits her; so bitter and burnt, she could almost sneeze from it. She faintly wonders if that is what his fear smells like, but then his expression hardens and she has to remember how to breathe. 

“Do you want it back in the socket, or do you want to keep bitching until we crash and die?”

Oh. He is trying to… help?

Rey stares at him suspiciously, not quite relaxing. He needs her - she has to keep reminding herself of this. Without her, he’s completely fucked. That at least guarantees her some form of safety. With a held breath, she turns ever so slightly in his direction. She’s never torn her arm out of the socket before, but she’s heard the experience of having it popped back in is - 

Matt is quick. She will give him that, if only grudgingly. 

He grasps her arm and in one swift gesture, she hears the _crunch_ again. The pain is immediate, blinding and then… There is relief. 

Rey opens her eyes when she realizes she has them shut tight. He has already drawn away, his bloody and battered face turned towards the terrifying scene outside their viewport. She opens her mouth and then closes it, turning towards the yoke with considerable more ease. She’s still in a lot of pain, but the worst of it has subsided. Like having an infected tooth pulled out. 

“You’re welcome.”

Oh, what a fucking _bastard_. 

She closes her eyes and pushes an irate breath through her teeth before focusing on the helm. She will tell him later just how much of this is his fault (all of it) and she will devise a way to subdue him again (with whatever blunt object is handy). 

Until then she just has to fly them through an asteroid field and escape the gravity well of five gigantic planets. Should be easy, right?

*

It’s not. It very much is not. 

They have narrowly avoided no less than a dozen collisions. Each instance has made Rey feel as though she has swallowed a lemon. Coupled with her misfortune of being thrust into this situation with an Alpha terrorist, she honestly does not understand how she isn’t dead yet. 

The odds are certainly not in her favour. 

“Fucking _move_!” Matt shouts, though she is not sure if this is at her, the ship, or at yet another wayward asteroid that has strayed into their path. 

“I’m _trying_ ,” she snaps at him anyway because it feels good to vent some of the frustration out on what (and who) is very much the cause of all of her misery right now. He is strapped into his seat next to her and keeps growling and twisting his face away from the viewport every time they get near one of the asteroids. 

So much for Alpha toughness. He is just as scared as she is. 

Rey dips them below the asteroid, narrowly avoiding smashing the tail section of Falcon 8 by the width of her thumb. At least they have managed to escape from the gas giants. Those sickly looking planets made her nauseated just looking at them because just _where the fuck are they?_

It’s a great question and one Rey cannot answer without taking her eyes off the viewport and crashing them into one of thousands of space debris around them. She dreads the answer. They aren’t anywhere near their intended target, that’s for sure. 

“If you get that close one more _fucking_ time-”

“You try flying then! This isn’t easy!” she shrieks at him, before hissing through her teeth when they clear a particularly narrow passage. 

They both breathe loudly, his hands squeezed his armrests so hard she doesn’t know how they haven’t snapped into pieces by now. She flips off the proximity alert because she can see just fine that there are obstacles in their way, thank you very fucking much. The alarm is only accomplishing giving her a fucking headache and _Matt_ isn’t helping either. 

“What did you just turn off?” His breath leaves him in a shaky exhale when she takes the ship on a sharp turn.

Maybe if she changes direction, they’ll reach the end of this madness sooner. As it stands right now, this asteroid field makes the one between Mars and Jupiter look no larger than a football stadium. 

Rey considers lying to him but she is too distracted with piloting to have any hope of sounding convincing. She is a shit liar anyway. Never gets away with anything. 

“We don’t need it,” is all she says, sweat dripping in her eyes and her shoulder aching fiercely. 

“We don’t need _what_?” he growls at her. 

“Just - fucking - _stop_ distracting me! This is _all_ your fault and if you don’t want us splattered against one of those rocks out there, you better shut the hell up!”

“My fault?” he roars at her incredulously, completely disregarding everything else she just said. Oh, if only she could bash him over the head all over again. “You’re the crazy bitch who attacked me! _You’re_ the one who hit all the goddamned controls when all I asked you to do was -”

They both scream at the same time as a gigantic asteroid takes up the entire viewport. 

Rey knows the second before the impact that they are going to crash. She tries to avoid it - she really does - but the best she does is turn the ship so they collide at a forty-five-degree angle, smashing the aft section of the ship and part of the nose right into solid space rock. 

There is a loud, crunching _BANG_ below them and about fifteen different alarms go off in the cockpit, drowning out their screams as the ship first shudders and then lurches like a drunk on last call. Smoke fills the cabin as some of the controls emit sparks and the computer notifies her that two of the engines have been taken out. 

Worst of all, the yoke is not responding to her steering at all. They’re adrift, venting fuel and god knows what else. A white haze of panic settles over Rey for just a second before - of all damned things - Commander Akbar’s voice fills her head. 

Only it’s not real. It’s a memory of her training. 

_You do not get to panic out there, officers. If you panic, you die. All you might have are seconds - precious seconds - to react and do the right thing. Use them._

All of her training kicks in and that haze retracts if only enough to let her think. If two out of the three engines are out, and they’re dumping fuel to boot, then it is only a matter of minutes before the coolants reach critical levels. Once the coolants go, there is nothing to prevent the engines from exploding. 

Which will very much result in their deaths. 

_Get up,_ she is already telling herself. _You know what you have to do now. Get up._

Her fingers haven’t gotten the memo yet because when she goes to undo her seat buckles, she can’t quite get them to cooperate. On the second try, she succeeds. She stumbles to her feet when the ship shudders again and Matt belatedly does the same. 

“Where the fuck are you going?” he shouts over the bleating alarms. 

“We need to jettison in the escape craft!” she shouts back. She is already thinking about how much oxygen they will have (perhaps a month’s worth at most) and how the hell they hope to escape this hellish stretch of space in a craft with negligible engines and little to no protection when Matt goes to block her path. 

Somehow, despite her fear of him and this entire situation, the cold ruthless part of her mind consumed with her training has her reaching up to grab him by the lapels of his ridiculously undersized flight suit. She yanks him down so he is level with her face. She’s quite a bit shorter than him but she manages to do it, her fingers curled on either side of his neck and the material pulled so tight it is starting to rip. 

“The engines are going to blow. We have to leave. _Now._ ”

For the first time since she has met this dangerous beast, he looks like he is finally listening to her. His lips part and his eyes go wide before he closes his mouth and swallows thickly. 

Then, miraculously, he nods at her. 

Rey doesn’t spare him another word and simply turns to the corridor, running as fast as her feet will carry her. They knock into the walls when the ship veers sharply to the right, but other than the occasional grunt from Matt they are both quiet, too filled with panic to do anything but run. She just hopes they can clear the vessel before it blows - or hits another asteroid for that matter. 

They reach the cargo hold in record time and just as she suspected, BB8 has not been started up. The droid sits in its containment cube, deactivated. Rey pauses by the cargo hatch in indecision. They don’t have a lot of time to move the droid, yet if they somehow land somewhere halfway safe, they will need it. BB8 carries the schematics for everything from the living quarters, to the greenhouses she will need to plant all their food. 

Matt skids past her and though she had thought he would just keep going, he whirls back to her with a furious snarl. 

“What are you doing _now_?” 

“We need the droid!” she shouts over the blaring ship’s alarms before he can scream his displeasure at her again. “Help me!”

Because there is no way she is in any shape to push BB8’s containment cube into the cargo hold. Not with her shoulder, not with her broken ribs either. 

“Fuck the droid,” he growls, “you’re the one who said we have to get off this ship.”

Rey holds her hands up before Matt can manhandle her into the cargo hold, trying her very hardest not to lose it on him - _again_. 

“Look,” she says as calmly as she can with a rupturing ship and angry Alpha looming over her, “if we make it to a planet, we are going to need it. It contains millions of gigabytes of data - everything we need to build a shelter and store food. Just… please.”

She puts everything into that last word, too tired and panicked to fight with him. 

He stares down at her for more seconds than they have, and then he grunts. She thinks he means to snatch her into the hold anyway, but he shoves past her and starts pushing the cube inside. She breathes out a sigh of relief that does nothing to bellay the insanity all around them and heads inside. 

While Matt finishes pushing the droid into what is to be their new craft, she shuts the emergency hatch and jogs to the control panel on the far wall. Dozens upon dozens of canisters line the room, each corded down in kevlar and steel. It would take a lot to dislodge them, which is good because just one of those canisters weighs several tonnes. They do not want those loose around the hatch when they take off from the ship. 

The ship gives a massive palpitation like a homicidally irregular heartbeat. Rey cries out, barely avoiding a nasty spill to the floor when she grabs onto the wall. Behind her, Matt swears sharply, banging into one of the canisters but somehow staying on his feet. 

This is the only push Rey needs to jettison the hatch. 

The floor shudders beneath their feet and they both scramble to the small flight seats that ascend from a small latch in the floor. The control panel extends out from the wall on steel levers, automatically snapping into place right before them so they are able to pilot the hatch. They have a small viewport with which to see outside. The asteroids are thinning out - the first and only piece of good news so far on this ill-fated journey. 

Not too far in the distance, she can make a small orbital body. It might be a planet but it is too far away to tell for sure. For now, she is just going to hope they clear the Falcon. She went through these simulations too - on how to pilot the hatch in the event the Falcon becomes compromised. The absolute last resort. She never thought she would ever have to use the hatch, never in her wildest nightmares. 

But then, she never thought she would be stuck in this insane situation with a terrorist Alpha either. 

Rey blows out a trembling breath and hits the switch to give her helm control. Then she looks up at Matt as he wipes sweat and blood from his eyes. She is about to detach from Falcon 8, her last tie to the world she has left behind. They are well and truly on their own now, without even the support of a proper ship and… She has _Matt_ ; a beastly Alpha with a serious temper problem, who would probably love more than to kill her for simply being a Beta. 

He seems to be thinking along the same lines about her because his pallor has gone suspiciously pale again. 

_This is all your fault!_ she wants to scream at him. 

But this isn’t the right time. She wonders if there ever will be a time again and suddenly finds herself wishing she was the kind of person who believed in God because she sure as hell feels like praying right now. Neither of them spares the other another word and it is with deep misgivings that Rey punches in the command to jettison the escape hatch from Falcon 8. 

In a screech of metal, the hatch drops down. 

“ _Escape hatch preparing for final separation,_ ” the computer tells her in a cheery British accent. “ _Five... four... three... two… one_.”

 _Please don’t let us die,_ Rey silently prays. 

But if there are any gods, they certainly aren’t taking calls from her today. 

Her breath leaves her in a pained _whoosh_ as the ship drops. The canisters rattle and BB8’s containment cube slides across the floor, but otherwise, the escape hatch is held in a spell of silence. The thrusters have just come online and the computer is halfway through announcing that they have cleared the ship when it happens. 

Falcon 8 explodes. 

Rey’s head whips back against the headrest from the impact of the shockwave and then she can’t see anything out of the tiny viewport because the hatch is now _spinning_. They soar away from the fiery remains of the ship, the small rectangular hatch spinning so fast, it is like they have been punted across the stars like a kid’s football. 

Rey’s ribs flare in pain from being jostled violently in her seat and when she looks to her right, Matt is slumped sideways in his chair. She doesn’t know if he has fainted, or if he knocked himself out somehow, but it doesn’t really matter anymore because she can’t get control over the ship. 

None of the controls are responding and it is all just a hellish repeat of the Falcon all over again, only this time - 

The air pressure in the cabin decreases so rapidly, that in one second Rey is awake and screaming in panic and fear, and in the next her eyes roll to the back of her head and she is lost to a great black abyss

*

Something is burning. 

That is the first thing Rey registers upon awaking with a pained groan. Her eyes flutter open and for one mad second, she is convinced Matt will be there to greet her again, yelling at her to not to pass out, that they are off course and she needs to pilot the Falcon through a treacherous asteroid field. 

But they are not on the Falcon anymore. 

Brilliant sunlight greets Rey’s bleary eyes. It is because the viewport has been smashed into a million pieces - because a large tree branch is poking through, less than a foot away from her face. 

Rey scrambles backwards in her seat, breathing harshly and coming to more quickly. To her left, one of the panels in the wall is on fire, though it seems to be putting itself out. She turns to her right, already dreading what she might find. She does not like Matt - she might even go so far as to say that she _loathes_ the animal - but she doesn’t wish him dead either. 

Matt is still unconscious, his chest rising and falling softly. Though she would not go as far as to say she is relieved, she pushes out a low breath and reaches for her seat buckles. Besides a little whiplash, she does not appear to have accumulated any more injuries, which is a fucking miracle. 

She moans in pain when she stands. Everything hurts. Even her fucking _teeth_ hurt, likely from clenching them. 

But first… where the fuck _are_ they?

Rey stumbles across the hatch, stepping through minor debris from the broken viewport and where some of the panels crumpled from their - impact? Did they crash, or did the emergency systems kick on in time? The computer must have compensated at some point, or else they would have never survived...

She passes by BB8 and is relieved to see the containment cube took most of the damage. Through the small window on the cube, she can see the droid is still in one piece. It's a small thing, but it's something. 

Reaching up to a small port on the wall, she opens it and takes out a scanner. If the viewport is broken and they’re still breathing, then wherever this is has oxygen at least. The scanner will tell her more. 

Finally, she reaches the hatch door. She has no idea where they have landed, no idea if the world is hospitable outside beyond the breathable air, no idea how she is going to navigate this with Matt - or whoever he really is. 

Rey leans against the release before opening the door, closing her eyes and breathing deeply. She feels like she will crumble at any second from the weight of what has been thrust upon her shoulders. This was not the way this day was supposed to go - but she is here. She is alive. 

She just has to stay that way. 

“Okay,” she murmurs to herself. “Okay, Kenobi. You can do this.”

Rey looks back at Matt from over her shoulder, blinking owlishly at his unconscious form. After she takes a look outside, she will secure him somehow. There has to be rope or something like that around here. Maybe if she can have a conversation with him, they can…

What? Work together? Be cordial?

She almost wants to laugh. 

No, that will never happen. But she will deal with that part later. 

She turns back to the release and regards the button wearily. Such a small thing, that button, for what it might mean for the foreseeable future. She can’t stay locked in here forever, though. Whatever is out there, she has to face it. That is the only way she will live through this. 

She licks her lips, tasting blood and sweat, and then hits the release button. 

There is a metallic _clang_ and then the doors slowly ascend. She leans against the wall for a second longer, flicking on the scanner and waiting with bated breath for what she is about to see. When she pushes off the wall, she walks to where the doors have parted, wincing away from bright white sunshine. It is like that for a few more seconds; the world a white haze of light, in which she cannot make out any discernible features. Then, when the doors have fully opened and her eyes have adjusted to the light, her breath gets locked up in her chest. 

A riotous tangle of emerald jungle greets her eyes, spread out over an uneven landscape of capped off mountains and twisting rivers and ravines. 

That is when Rey realizes they have crash-landed on one of those mountains because she can see _everything._ When a flock of strange looking birds takes off in the distance, she can only watch with muted wonder and trepidation. This is now their home, for better or worse. 

A whole wild unknown world.


	5. Square One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “No? What do you mean no?”
> 
> Matt adjusts his legs, sprawling them out before them and twisting his ankles as though to stretch them. Bones crack like gunshots and she finds herself leaning away from him on instinct. 
> 
> “There is no ‘we’. You’re a fucking moron if you think otherwise.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These kids just don't know how to play nice. 
> 
> A note about BB8: the droid's design is completely different from canon; however, his personality will be very similar ;)
> 
> Enjoy darlings! <3

Several loud _clanks_ resound throughout the hatch, rhythmic and about six seconds apart. Rey knows the exact timing because she counts in between if only to distract herself.

So far, her efforts are not working.

Sometimes the clanking stops for a minute or so, but this period of reprieve is anything but quiet. 

“ _Rey! I know you’re in here! Untie me right fucking now… REY_!” 

Matt has a powerful set of lungs on him, she’ll give him that. 

A half-full water canteen sits next to her on the floor. Crumbs speckle her lap but she couldn’t give a toss about how kempt she is right now. She eats ravenously, shoving crackers in her mouth and dipping her fingers into the small jar of peanut butter without preamble. Turns out that fighting an Alpha, breaking several ribs, dislocating her shoulder, then flying through an asteroid field and crash landing on an unknown planet really takes it out of you. 

Rey is exhausted. Sweaty, in pain, terrified and absolutely _enraged_ she is in this situation at all - but yeah, but mostly exhausted. 

She leans back against BB8’s containment cube, staring around the shadowy hatch with weariness as the clanking resumes. She thinks he’s kicking the loose components of the flight console, but she isn’t sure. She has not ventured to that part of the hatch since he woke up, tied to his flight seat with a length of torn cable from the navigation panel. 

Needless to say, he doesn’t seem to appreciate his new accommodations.

She wipes bits of crackers and peanut butter off her face, then leans against a canister to catch her breath. She gorged like a barbarian, rather than the civilized, university educated young woman she is but she figures she earned a little barbarianism after the shit she's been through.

Matt goes quiet again and in that ringing silence she can hear the sounds of the lively jungle outside. They appear to have crashed here during mid-day, but it’s hard for her to tell for sure with the way the mist overhangs the jungle canopy. Even up here, in the mountains, she cannot see the sky properly. 

The fine hairs on her temple cling to moistened skin and she keeps nudging beads of sweat from her temples with her shoulder. The humidity will take some getting used to. Coming to terms with just being here _at all_ is going to take some getting used to, but right now she is too tired to contemplate her improbable fate. 

Maybe, if Matt shuts the fuck up after a while, she can get a few hours sleep. Then she might be able to come up with a plan and find the next logical step. 

“ _Rey_ … for fuck’s sake, answer me!”

Well, that’s better than calling her a conniving bitch for the umpteenth time. God, how is she supposed to survive on this planet with _that_?

She hesitates, a gob of peanut butter on her fingers and her hand half raised to her mouth, before sighing. 

“Once you’ve calmed down, I’ll give you some food and water. Then we can talk.”

She expects him to scream and thrash again, as he did when he first woke up, but instead only silence greets her. She eyes the shadows with suspicion, but when the clanking doesn’t resume, she finishes eating and tries to ignore how badly her hand is shaking. 

Because they will have to talk at some point. She can’t just leave him tied to the chair, as tempting as that might be. Booting up BB8 will be helpful, but she will still need an extra set of hands to set up their shelter and their food… 

If they don’t kill each other first. 

To her grave irritation, her watch has stopped working. She doesn’t know if it happened in the crash, or if the planet has some part in it. The gravity here feels similar to Earth, but who knows the effect even a minute change will have on anything, from her watch to even her body. 

She is still in quite a bit of pain. The medkit, wherever it is, must be stored somewhere deeper in the cargo hold. Falcon 8 was equipped with one too of course, but that medkit, like the ship it was on, is so much space dust now. She still can’t bring herself to fully acknowledge it - that she is stuck here with no communication with the outside - with _Earth_. 

That she has already failed her mission. 

She looks down at the peanut butter and grimaces, before placing it on the shelf. Her appetite fades away the longer she ponders her predicament. 

The scanner’s results had come back inconclusive about most of the areas she scanned just outside the ship. Is there water on this planet? Yes. Oxygen, carbon, methane, nitrogen, hydrogen - all life-sustaining elements. 

But she knew that already. 

All she had to do was look outside the hatch’s busted window and listen to the strange sounds of the planet’s insects and animals. The fact that they have landed on a planet with the essential elements of life is a statistical anomaly. 

That is about the only luck she has come across since leaving Earth. 

She still doesn’t know what else is here - or even where _here_ is. There are lifeforms on this planet - she heard something big crashing through the underbrush down the mountain from the ship and quickly scurried back inside. While it’s reassuring to know that other forms of life have managed to thrive on this planet, she doesn’t know what kind of life they are. There could be gigantic dinosaurs out there for all she knows. 

Rey shivers at the thought. 

After she boots up BB8, she will have to take a look at the weapons. The thought of using one of those guns makes her queasy, but if she has to…

Rey looks up from where she has drifted off into a dazed staring contest with the floor and glares morosely at the _other_ animal she needs to concern herself with. 

Matt resumes kicking the console, though she thinks he is just doing it to be petty now. She has no idea where the hypospanner fetched up, but she found a loose copper coil on the floor earlier. If all else fails, she’ll bash him upside the head again. She just hopes the cables from the steering column will hold. It’s not like they’re going to need them, anyway. 

The hatch is fucked. They’re stuck on this rock of jungle. 

Together. 

*

“This is how this is going to go, _Matt_. I am going to ask you questions and you are going to answer them. Then we can talk about untying you.”

His head is tilted towards the floor, the muscles in his arms and shoulders straining against the flight suit that never belonged to him. His gaze is fixed on hers with sullen hatred, his eyes dark and narrowed. His jaw shifts from side to side and she winces when she hears his teeth grinding together. He is practically vibrating with fury, but she forces herself to keep calm. She will be the rational one for as long as it takes to sink into his thick, Alpha skull that things aren’t going to go the way he wants. 

“I mean it. I’m not letting you loose until we reach an understanding.”

He doesn’t answer her and she takes that as an acquiesce because she leans back against the navigation panel, the coil clutched tightly in her hands. He glances at it, then at her and raises an eyebrow like she is no more threatening than a kitten. 

Well, if the busted up map of his face is any indication to him, then he should know by now that she can hold her own pretty well. 

She shifts, wincing at the pain from her shoulder, and then pushes a short exhale through her nose. 

“Who are you?”

Good. Best to start with the easiest question and then… She’ll just have to go from there. 

His expression relaxes, if only incrementally, and then he leans back in his seat as far as the cable will let him, tilting his head back as though in challenge. His hair is hanging in tangled strings around his face and she can see the prominent curves of his ears where she couldn’t before. 

She probably doesn’t look much better. A shower would be heaven right about now, but that’s a luxury that will not exist for them until the shelters are installed. 

_One thing at a time. First - get this beast to stand down._

But he doesn’t look like he wants to stand down at all. He looks rather like he would enjoy throttling her until her head pops off. 

Rey swallows thickly and waves the coil at him again. 

“Answer me, damn you.” 

But he just goes on staring at her, his expression growing lax. Smug, even. He does not say a word in reply and that is when she smells it again. 

Baked cookies. Creamy frosting. Cinnamon and nutmeg. But something else too, lending the almost too-sweetness of his scent an organic bouquet that evens it all out. Like moss and morning’s rain, or the bark of a birch tree, which she did not realize she remembered the scent of until literally right this moment. 

Their house - her parents, her brother and her - when she still had a family. Their house had a birch tree in the front yard. 

A pang of homesickness goes through her that is so elemental, tears come to her eyes. Which is the exact _opposite_ of what she needs right now. 

Rey blanches, suddenly furious. Motherfucker. _Motherfucker_. 

“Do you think I won’t hit you with this? Because I will.” 

She won’t. Not unless she has to. But he doesn’t need to know that. 

He blinks up at her, the scratch she gave him a swollen and jagged red line across his face. She will have to disinfect that soon - once he starts talking, of course. 

But he isn’t talking, the bastard, and she is only growing more hysterical with each passing second. He knows it too because he is practically smirking at her now. Even with the blood and bruises covering his face, he has somehow managed to make her feel small and irrational. 

And then it occurs to her. 

She draws up to her not so considerate height and glowers at him. 

“Do you want to eat?” Nothing, not even so much as a blink in her direction. “Food, Matt. I assume even Alpha beasts need to eat sometime.”

His jaw shifts and his smirk fades away, if only slightly. It’s a small thing, but she grins at the gesture like he just revealed all his secrets to her. 

Then, it is _his_ turn to glower at her with all the malevolent and frankly terrifying Alpha might he possesses. Rey stares back at him, fighting not to back away. Not to cower from him like he so clearly expects her to. 

“If you want to eat, you’re going to have to give me some information. We’re stuck here together, _Matt._ Because of you. The least you can do is -”

“Fuck off.”

He says it so casually that she gawks at him like he has started speaking a foreign language. He glances away and then looks back at her when she makes no move to speak, raising his eyebrows and ducking his head forward with a vicious snarl. 

And this time, to her great shame, she does recoil from him. 

“ _Fuck. Off_.”

When he looks away this time, his expression is closed off and no amount of threatening him, yelling, or even taunting him with the promise of food and medicine will make him speak again. 

Motherfucker. 

*

She keeps nodding off and then jerking herself awake, her heart fluttering in her chest and half convinced that Matt will be standing above her when she awakes. 

Ready to snap her little neck. 

But he remains strapped to the flight seat, right where she left him. She heard him adjusting earlier, but since then the escape hatch has been silent. She cleans up her wounds, glancing to the broken window and listening to the nighttime sounds of this strange planet. 

Bugs _cheep_ and _chirp_ out there in a heady symphony; a great many of them, from what she can hear. 

She lingers in the hatch, too afraid to venture outside after dark. There could be - well - _anything_ out there. At least in the daylight, she can see. She wonders how long the nights and days are on this planet. She has no way of measuring now - not with her watch broken. 

She will have to get BB8 booted up, but that too will have to wait until daylight. The emergency lights all failed after the crash. It’s almost pitch black in here, save for a small flashlight she found in the same panel as the scanner. 

At least she found the medkit. She has injected herself with antibodies, just in case, and after using the med scanner she discovered, to her renewed outrage, that Matt did indeed break her ribs when he tackled her into the seat yesterday. 

Three to be exact. 

There isn’t much she can do for them. The fractured bones aren’t protruding into her organs, thankfully, so she tapes herself up as best as she can with tension bandages and does the same for her shoulder. The bandages contain antioxidants and an array of other medicinal properties that will speed up the healing process. 

She wanted to do the same for Matt - even though she doesn’t owe him a damned thing - but he growled at her when she got too close again. 

Growled. At her. Like a fucking animal. 

Rey has not approached him since then. Instead, she hunted around the canisters for more medical supplies and took inventory of all the food and shelter parts they will eventually need. She found a perimeter blueprint - one that BB8 will likely have to construct as the pieces are too big for her or Matt to manage. If they can fence off the area first, then they can start construction on a shelter. 

It’s not much, but she has a rough plan for their survival. Or for hers at least. 

If Matt wants to stay strapped into that chair until kingdom come, then that’s his choice.

But that line of thought does nothing to dispel a lingering feeling in her guts. She knows what it is and she cannot for the life of her fathom why she feels this way when he was the one who boarded her ship with the intention of hijacking it. He was the one who attacked her and got them marooned on this planet. This is all entirely his fault. 

Still, she feels guilty. He hasn’t had anything to eat or drink. She knows his nose is broken - at the very least. The scratch is already getting infected and if that gets into his circulation system, she is going to have a hard time treating him. 

First, he needs to eat and drink, if he would stop being so fucking stubborn for two seconds. Rey knows he isn’t sleeping over there. She looks down at the peanut butter and crackers, and blows out a harassed sigh. 

“Are you hungry?” she calls to him, her voice echoing across the hatch. 

Like every other time she has attempted to speak to him in the last twelve hours, he does not reply. 

“Look… you don’t have to answer my questions.” Right now, anyway. “I’ll give you some food and water. If you won’t let me tend to your wounds, you can at least let me do that.”

Silence. 

Rey leans back against the canister she is propped against, banging her head against it with a hollow _pang_. Why does he have to make this more difficult than it already is? Doesn’t he realize that they’re stuck here? That, at some point, they will have to, at least in some small way, _work together_?

He does not say a word and after a while, Rey stops trying.

*

BB8 is heavy. 

She doesn’t know how Matt pushed the containment cube _and_ BB8 into the escape hatch, but she can barely drag the droid from the cube let alone have any hope of moving both. Her shoulder and ribs twinge in protest, but she keeps going, knowing that they need the droid. Sooner rather than later. 

BB8’s design is beautifully simple. 

Its metal plating is gunmetal grey and iridescent. The droid resembles a gigantic square, about two feet in thickness. It stands a little over half her height, though she knows the two roving limbs will give the droid an extra eight feet when extended. BB8 was designed to be a builder droid, though it does have a personality subroutine and it can assist with a variety of other tasks, including medical aid, long-distance resource retrieval, gardening and about a thousand other capabilities. 

It’s the droid’s computer processing parts that make the damned thing so heavy. Rey knows this, and about everything else about BB8 because unlike most of the other officers, she poured over every schematic and piece of data about the droids. That’s just who she is - a keener and over-achiever. 

Rey pauses to catch her breath and wipe the sweat from her eyes. Lugging the droid out of the cube would have been a hell of a lot easier with two people, but this is her life now until a certain someone decides to grow up and act like a halfway rational adult. 

Fucking Alphas. Fucking _Matt._

He still hasn’t spoken to her, even though he must be dehydrated and starving by now. She has given up trying to make him at least let her feed him and she doesn’t tell him what she is up to either. 

She hopes he is dying with curiosity over there. She hopes he fucking chokes on it. 

Sweat beads down her face as the humidity becomes stifling with the arrival of dawn. She shrugs more sweat from her eyes and keeps pulling, dragging the droid onto the floor in loud metallic clanks. The droid thumps to the floor when she has finished dragging it out and she stares down at it for a moment, panting for air and wincing from the hollow ache in her injuries. 

She will need new tension bandages before she does anything else. 

“You sound like an overweight paedophile.”

Rey snaps her head up and narrows her eyes at where Matt is tied to the chair. He isn’t really looking at her, but down at the droid. There’s a tense look on his face, like he hates the droid just as much as he hates her. 

“Ah, it speaks,” she remarks dryly, yet any effect at sarcasm is ruined by her heaving for air and her sharp hisses of pain. 

He flicks his baleful glare from the droid to her. His lips are dry and flaking, and she almost falters with concern. With that needling guilt. 

But then:

“You’re mouthy for a Beta bitch.”

She blinks at him in surprise and then narrows her eyes on a scowl. What. A. _Prick_. 

“Well, you’re mouthy for someone tied to a chair, so -”

He lunges forward with a rasping snarl and she _almost_ skitters away from him. 

“ _Fuck_ -”

“ - off?” Rey suggests with a raised brow and only trembling a _little_ from just how ferociously hair-trigger his temper is. “Yeah, I know. We’ve been over that part already.” 

She sounds colourless, like water or air, but on the inside she is trembling with a terrifying concoction of fury and anxiety.

How in the world are they supposed to survive together? How is she supposed to begin to consider releasing this beast, with his teeth bared at her and his wild black hair hanging in his face like a lunatic, let alone try to bridge some kind of tentative peace with him?

He leans away from her with a disgusted curl to his lips, like _she_ is the one behaving poorly. 

But Rey doesn’t walk away, like the dozen other times he has done this in response to pretty much everything she has had to say to him since last night.

They have to talk about what they’re going to do now. Even if he doesn’t want to. 

“I know you’re thirsty. Probably sore as hell too.” She tilts her head at him when he glances away from her to glare holes into the floor. “I know you’re also scared, just like me. However much that might offend your Alpha pride.”

“You don’t know a fucking thing about me. _Beta._ ” His voice is hoarse, likely from dehydration. Little more than roughened bark over sand. 

_Keep calm. Maintain control. You can do this, Rey. You bloody well have to._

“No, I guess I don’t.” 

It is a painful thing, agreeing with him on _any_ manner, but all of her other methods have not worked. So she’ll change her approach. Clearly, any attempts at being even halfway civilised won’t work with a creature of this ilk. Maybe some old fashioned logic and harsh reality will do the trick. 

She shrugs, nodding once to herself, before squatting down on her haunches. This way, at least she isn’t standing above him. She can only imagine what that does for his “Alpha pride”, having a Beta tower over him and tell him what to do. 

Matt looks weary when he meets her gaze again, his eyes flicking from her face to the way she is hunching down to the floor so they are more or less level. 

“I know nothing about you and frankly, I don’t want to. You tried to steal my ship and do god knows what with me afterwards, but I fought back and now we’re here. Whatever your plans were, whoever else you might be working with - that all ended the moment we made the jump to wherever this is. We can sit in here and blame each other until our faces turn blue, but that doesn’t help either of us right now.” 

She speaks quietly, honestly, and above all, ensures she maintains eye contact. 

And it seems to be working. He doesn’t growl, or thrash, or swear at her. He just sits there, and blinks back at her with a faint frown, eyes dark and boring into hers. 

His scent wafts over her again, but she endeavours to ignore it. 

“We’ve crashed on a planet we know nothing about, millions of light-years off course from my original target. There could be predators outside this hatch, even sentient life for all we know. We have no data about the terrain of this planet, nothing about so much as the weather. The rain could be acidic enough to burn our skin off, for all we know. And now… _Now_ , no one knows where we are… And even if they _did_ , they can’t rescue us. We’re stuck here. All we have is the supplies in this hatch, a droid and - whether either of us likes it or not - each other.”

She stops then, waiting for a surly insult, or even one of his screaming fits. 

Matt grinds his teeth some more, muscles bunching in his suit in a way that she absolutely ignores. He might be - _fit_ \- but he’s still an animal. An animal that she has to convince not to rip her apart the moment she unties him. 

Rey blows out another breath and awkwardly gestures towards the floor. “My major was in plant biology. Horticulture too. Um… a major is -”

“I know what a fucking major is.” He’s doing that thing again - his lips folding together and jaw shifting. The cable gives a small _twang_ when he shifts in his seat. 

She narrows her eyes at it, praying that it continues to hold. 

“Right… well. I know how to use all the farming and irrigation equipment - if we’re even able to find suitable grounds for it, that is. I can grow and harvest all the seeds. The droid has the schematics for our shelter and greenhouses, so once we set up a perimeter, it can start building those for us.”

“So what?” He almost looks amused again if not for the dark, angry gleam in his eyes. 

“So -” Rey starts to sputter and then she turns crimson with ill-concealed anger, “ _so,_ we have a shot at survival. If we can just -”

“No.” He looks away from her again with that cold, resolute look in his eyes that she has come to loathe. 

“No? What do you mean no?”

Matt adjusts his legs, sprawling them out before him and twisting his ankles as though to stretch them. Bones crack like gunshots and she finds herself leaning away from him on instinct. 

“There is no ‘we’. You’re a fucking moron if you think otherwise.” 

He almost laughs when he says this, but she knows better now. He’s furious again, maybe because everything she said makes sense and he doesn’t want to acknowledge it, or perhaps because it is _her_ telling _him_ how things need to be. A Beta bitch, as he put it. 

She considers hitting him with the coil after all. It’s just a _brief_ fantasy, just a brief taste of what it might feel like to wipe that stoically arrogant expression off his face. 

Instead, Rey pushes off the navigation console and storms away from him. 

_Motherfucker_. 

*

Soft red light is strobing across Rey’s face as she rifles through another canister. 

Across the hatch, BB8 goes through yet another power cycle - the fifth that she has counted so far. She managed to turn the droid on, only to discover that because Matt had not gotten it prepped on Falcon 8, back when he was still masquerading as the _real_ Matt, BB8 will need twelve hours to defrag it’s systems and then boot on. 

He apparently just keeps finding new ways to completely fuck them over. 

So while BB8 powers up, she tries to keep busy. 

Right now, she’s looking for the weapons. Mostly because she doesn’t want Matt to find them if - and that’s a big if - she ever unties him from that chair. She considers using water torture to get him to cooperate, along with an array of other nasty tactics, but she knows she would never really do that. 

She’s not a monster. Not like _him_. 

She still doesn’t know his name. She doesn’t know a goddamned thing about him other than the fact that he is violent, aggressive and a complete arse. He might be sleeping now, but she isn’t entirely sure. His breathing has evened out a little. 

She peeks over at him as she rips open yet another compartment in one of the larger holds. His chest rises and falls in a steady pattern. 

Definitely asleep then. 

The scratch is getting worse. Maybe, if he is asleep deeply enough, she can sneak a tension bandage on his face. It’s not like he can rip the damned thing off. It would at least help heal the scratch and his broken nose. 

She pulls open one last cupboard and almost cries out with joy. The weapons - they’re all here. Guns, ammo, some knives and a long machete. Yet, her victorious smile fades the longer she looks at them. 

She really fucking hopes they won’t need these. 

Matt snores softly in his sleep and she turns back to him with a nervous frown. Is she really going to do this? She doesn’t owe him anything, but…

He won’t be much use to her, sick or dead. 

Rey tiptoes across the hatch, every small thud of her boots against the metal grated floor causing her to wince. She gets to the med-pack and retrieves a tension bandage. She hesitates, before taking out two more bandages.

She almost forgot about his hand. If she thinks about it for too long, she can vividly recall the feeling of his skin tearing under her teeth and she has to fight not to be sick. 

It is almost comical, the way she meekly approaches him. Outside, the day has moved into late afternoon. There is a beam of light shining perfectly on his face, illuminating all his injuries in painful clarity. She studies him, watching for signs that his breathing has changed, or if his muscles tighten as they always seem to do around her. 

He remains lax in his seat. 

Rey pauses about three feet away. Though he is covered with blood and grime, he looks almost peaceful while he sleeps. She remembers thinking something similar on Falcon 8 - how he appeared vulnerable to her, even though he is an Alpha and about the furthest thing from vulnerable there is. 

Right well… she better get this over with. 

She braces herself for anything when she takes the bandage out of its package and slowly raises it to his face. The scratch has begun to puss a little, particularly along the arch of his cheek. She would rinse his face off first, but she doubts she'll even be able to get the bandage on him properly without him waking up.

She inches closer, her stomach a nervous knot and her hand trembling as the tension bandage grazes his skin. 

His eyes snap open, but she is two seconds too quick for him. 

She doesn’t _mean_ to slap the bandage on his face. Really, she doesn’t. But by the time his eyes open, she has let out a startled squeak and he starts growling at her like a pissed off cat, and so she just… panics.

Spectacularly. 

She slams the bandage down across his face, covering up one eye completely and getting some of it on his broken nose. He screams in pain, but she has already scurried away from him before he can bite her fingers, or anything else he might do. 

“ _BITCH_!” he roars at her, struggling against the cable and moaning in misery. 

The cable gives another hollow _pang_ but she is too preoccupied to notice. 

“I’m sorry!” she blurts out, covering her face with one hand before gesturing angrily at him. “But you wouldn’t let me tend to your wounds! The scratch is infected so I -”

“ _No thanks to you_!” 

He closes his eyes and hisses in pain again. 

“It will only sting for a minute!” Rey doesn’t know why she is trying to reassure him of all damned things, but she can’t help it. Maybe she’s a masochist. “It will help with your nose too, so just try to stay still.”

“The nose you broke, you crazy bitch,” he growls at her, his free eye narrowed and his mouth twisted in an ugly snarl of hatred. 

Rey puffs up indignantly at that. 

“ _I_ wouldn’t have broken your nose if _you_ hadn’t tackled me and broken my fucking ribs. Which you broke three of, by the way! I thought you were trying to kill me, you arsehole!”

“I told you I wasn’t going to hurt you!” he shouts back at her, his struggles renewing as he thrashes in his seat. “If you had just _listened_ to me in the first place, we wouldn’t be in this shit pile!” 

“Right and I am just supposed to believe that a rabid Alpha who tried to commandeer my ship and take me prisoner wasn’t going to hurt me? After what your kind did to Earth, I am just supposed to blindly trust that you have my best intentions at heart!”

Her words ring across the escape hatch, strident and full of seething accusation. She heaves for air as she glares right back at him, the other two bandages clutched in her fist and the medpack swaying limply on her shoulder. 

Matt stares at her for a moment and then he just _screams_ at her. There are no words - just a bellow of rage and something else, something she does not have time to guess from the pained look in his eyes before the cables _shriek_ against the metal plating on the back of his seat. 

And suddenly, one of his arms is loose. 

*

Most humans have a built-in response to danger. Fight or flight. Doctors and psychologists call this the reptilian brain, where the call of instinct comes from. 

Rey doesn’t really give two shits what it’s called because before Matt can tear his other arm free of the restraints, she has already fled across the hatch.

The sun has almost set, leaving the hatch in a pall of darkness. All she has is the red strobing light from BB8 to guide her. She trips over something, likely a container of food, before she makes it to the weapons cargo. Ripping two nails down to the quick in all her haste, she tears the door open so quickly it bangs off the wall. 

Her hand is just closing over one of the rifles when a hand grabs her by the hair and yanks her head back sharply. 

She has no idea how Matt managed to sneak up on her so quickly, and so _quietly,_ but then he has dragged her backwards and he throws her into the canister behind her. He must know what she was going for because he isn’t even turned to her anymore, his arm reaching into the weapons hold. 

Panic, white and flaring, overrides all her senses. 

He is going for the guns. This six-foot-three behemoth Alpha is _going for the guns_. 

Without a strangled cry, Rey _leaps_ onto his back, covering his eye with one hand and locking her arm around his throat with the other. It’s the cockpit all over again, just two people (even if he is an abhorrent) fighting for survival. He roars, swatting at her face with his huge bear-paw hands. 

She refuses to let go, knowing that if she does, if he gets a gun, then she is dead.

She does not pause to remember the way he seemed so hesitant, even _sick_ with anxiety when they were still on Falcon 8 and he was in the process of attempting to take her prisoner. She does not think about how nervous he seemed the entire ride from Earth to Neptune, or anything else really, because she can’t know for sure. He might not have had the stomach to kill her before, but he could now. 

And that scares her more than anything else. 

“Fucking - _gah_!” he shouts breathlessly as she wrestles to stay pinned to his back. 

He hasn’t had anything to eat or drink in almost two days - he might outweigh her by hundred pounds, but she isn’t the one who is dehydrated, starved, and injured. Or at least, relatively speaking. Her ribs and shoulder flare with pain but it's manageable. It’s a fucking holiday compared to what he might do to her if she lets go. 

Matt stumbles backwards, snarling and growling as he bumps into the wall and off a control panel. Rey’s back hits the switch, opening the bay doors. 

Neither of them notices. 

“ _Stop it_!” she shouts into his ear. 

Rather than replying, he changes tactics. He reaches for her thigh and _pinches_ her - as hard as he can. She shrieks, her hand slipping and fingers accidentally digging into the scratch on his face. 

“ _Fuck - get off me you crazy bitch_!” He swings around sharply, attempting to buck her off, but she holds on as tightly as she can. 

“ _Fuck you_!” Rey screams back at him, terrified and outraged and at the end of a very short rope. She squeezes on his throat with her wiry arms, hoping that she can take enough of his oxygen away so that he passes out. 

Her plan is already going to shit though; for someone who hasn’t eaten, or drunk anything in the last couple days, he is surprisingly strong. They stumble across the dark escape hatch together, Rey clinging to his back like a boa constrictor and Matt trying to pry her off with angry curses and pained grunts. 

And behind their writhing forms, a large furry form fills the hatch doors. 

As silent as a spider curled up and about to lunge on its prey, a quadrupedal creature roughly the size of a mountain lion slinks into the hatch and watches them with glowing yellow eyes. Fur the colour of desert sand and claws as sharp as needles, the creature clicks across the metal floor, ears cocked and head tilted in consideration. It heard the ship crash two days ago and while the others were scared off, it is too hungry and desperate to afford to be more careful. 

It sniffs the air, skittering back a step when the larger of the two roars something unintelligible. They’re fighting - it can smell their anger and aggression. Their fear. It can also smell the blood dripping from their freshly torn wounds and… The big one. The male. It smells like the juicy fruit this creature sometimes eats off the bushes near its den. 

A pang of hunger goes through the creature’s three stomachs. 

It has not had anything to eat in days. This creature is smaller than the others of its kind. When they go on hunts, it gets the least amount of food. If any. These strange yelling and thrashing creatures, with their long legs and long arms, smell like a decent enough meal. 

Especially the big one. 

The creature growls lowly in its throat, revealing a set of long, pointy teeth. It lowers its bushy head and the tall, tufted points of its ears lie flat against its head. Backing up a few steps, with its front legs lowered and spine arched, it prepares to leap upon the oblivious humans and devour them whole.


	6. Wild Unknown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Because I told you I wouldn’t hurt you? Because I calmly asked you to listen to my instructions and you still fucking attacked me!” He yells this last part so loudly, some animal deep in the jungle startles with an indignant screech and takes off into a crash of branches and leaves. 
> 
> But Rey hardly notices anymore. 
> 
> “Because of what you are!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Angsssssst. 
> 
> Also, included that little gif from the amazing and hilarious film Hot Rod as Rey's personal daydream of shoving Matt over a cliff. :D

Rey can smell Matt’s sweat, the oil in his hair. The aroma of his aftershave, two days old. Most of all, she smells the burnt, copper-bitter scent of his anger. His pain. They are far too close for her to be noticing these things, but it’s not like she can just let him go. 

Rey digs her fingers into his hair and _yanks_. 

“F _ucking - grahhhh!_ ” He screams unintelligibly. 

She shrieks when he pinches her again, digging her fingernails into the firm arches of his shoulders in an effort to hang on. They’ve stumbled across the hatch, closer to the flight panel and away from the guns. She is just thinking about jumping off of him and making a break for the canister when she hears it - a high-pitched ominous screech that sounds nothing like anything she has ever heard before. Almost like a door shutting closed on rusted hinges, but not quite. 

There is something plaintiff about that sound. Something hungry and desperate. 

It is an interesting thing and not at all distracting, or appealing, or _anything_ but simply interesting when every muscle in Matt’s body locks together at the same time. He is like the door to a bank vault, when each mechanism and lock cinches together at once. He stills beneath her, panting for air just like she is, and she can feel that too because she is still plastered to him, clutched to him like a monkey on a giant’s back. 

His back ripples with tension, his shoulders bunch and the hand that was just pinching her thigh now squeezes unconsciously. 

Rey pulls in a sharp breath, though she does not know if it is from him touching her in such an unwelcomingly familiar way, or from the sound that caused it. Her fingers are still buried in his hair, but she is no longer pulling, just as shocked to stillness as he is. Matt turns on the spot with the stiffness of a robot. In all her shock, she remains perched on his back, unable to move or breathe for the fear going through her. They both look like they’ve both gone a few rounds against a pissed-off gorilla, but their new guest does not appear to notice or care about the state they are in. 

Then, when Matt has turned them all the way around, she sees it. 

The door. Which is now wide open. The door. Which is letting in a humid breeze. The door. Which has a solitary occupant standing within the hatch’s entrance. 

For a long moment, Rey does not understand what she is looking at. 

It’s an animal of some kind - at least, that is what her shocked and befuddled brain comes up with. It has four legs and is covered in wiry fur, not unlike an Irish wolfhound but with the colouring of a fennec fox. Snout long and angled, and face narrow, she can’t decide if it’s an avian animal of some kind or this planet’s version of a mammal. The creature has a canine look to it, though its tail is coiled like a spring and its eyes glow like twin headlights. 

Then, she sees its teeth; long, sharp and bared at them both. It makes that noise again, some warbling, high-pitched whine which causes all the hairs on her body to stand on end. 

That doesn’t sound like a friendly greeting. 

With painful slowness, she lets go of Matt’s hair and slides down his back until her feet hit the floor. The creature flinches, yipping and whining at them once more. It keeps flicking its yellow gaze between them, but it always returns to Matt. Avid, watchful. Starved. The creature stretches out its head on a long and oddly graceful neck and _sniffs_ , staring at Matt and drooling on the floor. 

Can it… smell what he is the same way she can? Either way, this can’t be good. 

Without saying a word to each other, they both start backing away at the same time, their footsteps slow and tremulous against the thick metal grated floor. All hostilities between them are abruptly forgotten as the creature growls and yips, staring between them with an avidness that is making Rey’s spine prickle. 

She knows that look. People have looked at her that way before, in the communal showers at the base, in the corridors and over meals. As much as that attention made her uncomfortable at the time, she knew it was only natural when cooped up in a base so long with the same people. 

And this is natural too, only there the hunger in this creature’s eyes is the more traditional variety. 

She has no idea how intelligent it is, so she tries to be surreptitious as she glances at the weapons’ hold. It’s about ten feet away - too far for her to hope to make it before the creature descends on her. Whatever this animal is, she can see the tension in its muscles the same way she can see it in Matt’s when he is at his most furious with her. 

This creature is strong. Likely quick, too. They need a distraction. 

“Scare it,” Rey mutters at Matt. At first, she thinks that he has not heard her, but she hears his soft grunt as they continue backing away. The creature slowly advances further into the hatch, its hungry gaze unwavering from them. 

“ _What_?” Matt breathes at her. 

“Wave your arms and scare it,” she murmurs back in a frightened hiss. 

The creature suddenly snarls and rounds on her, yipping and baring its needle teeth at her. 

She flinches, sweat beading down her face and pooling in the soft hollow of her throat. It feels like a thousand degrees in here, like the air is coated is molasses. She backs away another step, angling herself towards the canisters. 

“ _You_ scare it.” Matt inches towards her, a suspicious gleam in his eyes as tries to watch where she is going, while stilling keeping his gaze on the creature. 

Is he fucking kidding her right now?

“Just do it!” Rey whispers urgently. “I’ll get the weapons and -”

“Like fucking _hell_.”

She shakes her head minutely when Matt makes a sharp movement towards her, a warning flashing in her eyes. Is he a bloody _moron_? Scratch that - of course he is, what is she even thinking?

“ _Matt_ -”

But it’s already too late. 

The creature must sense what she is about to do, or perhaps it’s tired of this hesitant little game they’re playing because it gives one final screeching yip and bounds across the hatch towards them. 

Right for Matt. 

She has two choices and only one second to decide. Does she let the creature attack Matt while she goes for the weapons, or does she intervene? She releases a frightened moan, her face screwed up in resigned horror as she turns towards Matt. 

Fucking Alpha. Fucking _Matt_. 

She shoves him out of the way - which is no easy feat with how fucking _heavy_ he is and how much her injuries are still paining her. He slams into the flight chairs with a surprised shout. 

She ducks down, screaming as the creature leaps over her head. Its legs brush past her, wiry fur grazing her face as it misses its mark by scant inches, and crashes into the opposite wall with a snarling growl. She turns for the weapons canister, but for what feels like the thousandth time in less than forty-eight hours, Matt’s hand closes around her elbow. 

Instead of being thrown aside, or anything else she might have expected, he drags her into a staggering run. The coil is in his free hand - he must have grabbed it off the floor - but this is as far as she gets in her observations before they are fleeing from the escape hatch. Matt leaps out the door and Rey follows behind him a second later. 

She lands badly, rolling her right ankle. 

Rey grounds out a shriek between her teeth, but Matt is already hauling her to her feet. Then, they are sprinting across the small patch of clearing and into the darkness. As they leave the clearing and crash into the jungle, branches whip her in the face and leave itchy scratches across her exposed skin. 

Behind them, the creature screeches in unmistakable anger and then takes off after them. 

“We’ll - never - outrun it!” Rey shouts between pained gasps for air. 

Matt snaps something in reply, but she can’t hear him over the sound of her pulse rushing in her ears. The medkit bounces off her thigh and almost falls off her shoulder, but she manages to throw the strap over her neck, slinging it across her back so they don’t lose it. 

She wishes he would let go of her elbow. His skin is warm - _too_ bloody warm. He feels like a goddamned furnace but she’s no frame of mind to shove him off. Between her twisted ankle and all the tangled jungle, he is the only thing keeping her upright. 

The beast gives a shrieking roar behind them and soon she can hear its paws thudding into the ground, gaining on them. In the sky above, Rey sees the crest of three moons, but before she can marvel over this oddity, she realizes she can see a bit better up ahead of them. 

They’re approaching a cliff edge. 

“Matt!” she shouts, her throat raw and her lungs burning. “Up ahead, there’s -”

“I see it!” he starts running _faster_ and she has no time to protest or stop him. Not with a starved beast hot on their tails. 

She thinks he means to lure it over the ledge, but he pushes them into a faster sprint, squeezing her arm as though in warning every time she falters. 

Is he - _running them off the edge of a fucking cliff_? That was not what she meant when she pointed that out to him. She yells his name again, fighting between pulling out of his grasp and keeping up their hectic pace. 

The creature roars, this time in anger and she hears it skidding to an abrupt stop behind them. 

But they don’t stop. Or, she should say, _Matt_ doesn’t. 

“Matt - _WAIT_!” she cries out, but he doesn’t listen to her at all. 

Rey screams when they clear the last of the jungle, Matt yanking her to his side with inhuman strength, and they are - _falling_. There’s no ground left, nothing to hold onto except the crazy Alpha bastard who just threw them off a bloody cliff. 

She almost passes out in fear. 

The wind rushes through her hair and it feels like an eternity, that fall. She doesn’t want to die, she doesn’t, she doesn’t, _shefuckingdoesn’t_ and she waits for the inevitable crash to the ground, for all her bones to break and for the whole bloody fight to this planet to be for nothing. 

But they don’t meet the ground. 

Instead, she is suddenly enveloped in _cold_. She chokes, tasting sweetness in her mouth and then the same hand that has smacked her, pinched her, restrained her, and pulled her over the edge of a cliff is suddenly pulling her up. 

They’re underwater for a handful of seconds before they break the surface. 

Rey coughs, hacking up water and spit, and almost going under again before Matt shoves her towards an embankment. She kicks hard against the current, ignoring the burning in her ribs and shoulder, and the deep ache in her ankle. Her ripped fingernails sting from the water, but she ignores this too, splashing her way through the waves until her hands touch down on the clay and something that feels a lot like grass. 

The muscles in her arms pop as she heaves herself onto the bank, her clothes weighing her down and her boots filled with water. Matt does the same next to her, his bandage flapping against his face where it has partially slipped off. She crawls a few feet in the grass, turns on her back and collapses, pushing out water and air from her mouth in a choked exhale. A few feet away, Matt drops on his side facing away from her and catches his breath. 

They’re alive. Somehow, they’re alive. 

Perhaps more shocking than that, though, is the fact that Matt saved her life. Just a little. Yes, she pushed him out of the way when the creature tried to eat his face off, but he dragged her out of the hatch, even going so far as to hang onto her arm so that she wouldn’t fall behind when they ran. 

Even though she still hates him and thinks he’s a depraved Alpha beast and about a million other nasty things, that… changes things. Just a tiny bit. 

She turns her head to look at him. His clothes stick to his skin even worse than before, his hair plastered to his skull and one of his ears poking out in a prominent curve. His back expands and retracts as he pants for air, and she finds she has to look away. 

He seems more human to her than before and she doesn’t really know how that makes her feel. 

Then, Rey does a double-take of the river. The creature - she sits up in one jerky movement, staring wildly around them. She can see the cliff they leapt from moments earlier. There isn’t anything up there now, and neither is there on the opposite bank or anywhere else. 

And while this is cause for relief, she closes her eyes in belated realization. 

The hatch. The hatch is all the way up that mountain and they’ve floated quite a distance downstream and it’s dark and they have no idea where they are and the weapons are back there - all their fucking _food_ is back there - and those creatures could be anywhere - and what about the droid? When BB8 boots on and they’re not there…

She’s spiralling. She recognizes this, in the vague way people do when they are on the cusp of a panic attack, and she has to rub her chest and take deep breaths to calm herself down. 

Beside her, Matt shifts on the ground. He sits up, only to flinch when he realizes she is a feet few away from him.

But she isn’t even looking at him. She is already trying to formulate a plan. They have the medical supplies still. The bag survived their fall at least. They just have to make their way back - during daylight of course. She has no idea how they’re going to cross the river again, but they’ll have to find a way. 

She goes to stand up, her ankle flaring in pain before Matt jaunts to his feet right after her, making her startle from him. The coil is clutched in his hand and he glares down his nose at her like she might leap on his back again when he isn’t looking. 

Right. Well, running for their lives and falling into a river together has hardly made them chummy. They’re right back to square one again - hating and distrusting each other in equal measure. 

Rey sighs, her temples beginning to throb with an oncoming headache. 

“Do you need new bandages?”

Matt pulls his head back as though he didn’t expect this to come out of her mouth. Truthfully, she’s too damned tired to fight with him right now. 

“Give me the bag. I’ll put them on myself.”

Rey laughs humorlessly and backs away out of reach. “I don’t bloody well think so.”

He advances on her with a growl, but before he can say whatever shitty little comment she can see running through his head, her own temper flares up. 

“I’m not giving you the bag, so you can either accept that or you better hit me over the head with the coil because there is no way I’m leaving in you in charge of our only weapon _and_ our medical supplies.”

They glower at each other in mutual dislike before he makes a disgusted sound and turns back to the river. She doesn’t miss the way he watches her out of the corner of his eye, like _she_ is the unpredictable one. 

She sniffs and withdraws a few bandages from the pack. She’s barely held them out to him before he snatches them out of her hand and stalks away to the river’s edge. 

“We have to talk about how we’re getting back to the hatch,” she calls to his retreating back. 

Matt doesn’t say a word in reply. 

She watched him forlornly, wondering what she did to deserve being stuck in this situation with _that_. 

“No need to thank me for saving your ass - _again_ ,” he calls back to her before disappearing within the tall grass surrounding the bank. Presumably to clean his wounds. 

“Asshole,” she mutters under her breath, but instead of leaving him there as she _should_ , she lingers on the embankment. They have a better chance of survival if they stick together and he must realize this too because only a few minutes pass by before he emerges from the grass again. 

His hand is freshly bandaged, as is his face. He’s done a markedly better job than she did. 

She eyes the coil in his hand, sniffs and then turns on her heel to start walking up the river, using the moonlight to guide her. She thinks he might not follow her after all, but then she hears his footsteps behind her and she has to fight not to look over her shoulder every second. 

The medkit bounces against her hip with every step and after a while, the silence between them becomes tolerable if not comfortable. 

*

They walk for a long time. 

Rey could blame this on the fact that they are in an unfamiliar world where they know of at least one creature that would like to rip them both to shreds. She could blame it on the stress of the situation, or the fear gnawing in the pit of her stomach. 

But she knows the real reason. 

Matt is a lot sneakier about keeping his eye on her. Must be an Alpha thing because he seems to catch her every single time she throws a suspicious glare his way. Like he can feel her doing it. 

Rey doesn’t really care if he notices or not. She trusts him about as far as she can throw him (which is to say, not at all) and she doesn't like that he has the only weapon between them. She tries not to think about the weapons and supplies on the hatch because then her chest starts getting tight and she has trouble breathing. 

It’s not like she had time to grab a gun. Matt ensured that when he dragged her out of the hatch and threw them both over a cliff. She would be a lot angrier with him about it if either of them had been injured, but they got lucky. Her ankle is sore from when she twisted it, but besides that, they’re relatively in good shape. 

Though Matt must be starving by now. 

He hasn’t complained once about being hungry. She narrows her eyes at him, listening for the telltale sound of his stomach rumbling. But it never comes. Do Alphas need less food than Betas? That seems counter-intuitive to her. Matt is - well - a fucking _tank_. She would think that Alphas would need twice as many calories as the average Beta. 

But he doesn’t say a word about it and she soon forgets to care. 

The water from the river did not hurt them - at least as far as she can tell. She doesn’t want to even consider what kind of alien microbes are swimming around in her gut right now. Once daylight hits, she’ll stop to use the scanner on the river, but until then they’ll just keep walking. 

Even though she would love to sleep. Even though she’s so tired, she might fall over. 

She steps over a fallen tree (at least, it looks like a tree, though not like any she has ever seen before). The bark looks worn, almost like sandstone, and the leaves are a bright purplish colour. She is tempted to scan them, but the last time she did this, on a bush they passed by earlier, Matt threatened to take the scanner away from her. 

Which of course led to a twenty-minute argument about how she was slowing them down and that she apparently walked like she had a permanent stick up her arse, and that in turn, led to her calling him a number of colourful names and blaming him, once again, for their predicament. 

Since then, she has endured a hostile silence from him. She’s so over his shit. Fucking Matt. Fucking _Alpha_. 

“What’s your name?” She doesn’t really expect an answer and she doesn’t get one. “What is the point of withholding that information? Does it make you feel tough and powerful? Because frankly it just proves many of my earlier points.”

Nothing. 

Rey turns back to glare at him, only to find he isn’t behind her anymore. She stops, sputtering and about to call out to him, when she notices his large hulking shadow sitting against the base of a large tree. 

He catches her looking at him and makes a low sound of annoyance. 

“I’m going to rest but don’t think I won’t wake up if you pull any of your crazy shit,” he barks at her. He looks as exhausted as she feels and she just stands there, gawking at him. He seems to take her silence as agreement because he leans his head back against the tree and closes his eyes. “Great, now shut the fuck up. You’re worse than a goddamned hen.”

“Right back at you,” she snipes and then stalks off to find her own tree to lean against without waiting around to listen to his nasty reply. 

One of them has to stay awake in case one of those creatures comes around and she fully intends on keeping watch. She really does but as soon as she leans against the tree, her eyes drift closed and she falls into a troubled sleep. 

*

Rey wakes up first, right at the crack of dawn. 

She scrambles into a sitting position, staring around her wildly. She almost expects to be staring down the muzzle of that creature from last night, but the sun is out and there is nothing around her except green and more green. 

Laying under the same tree she left him under, Matt snores softly. Even with the bandage covering part of his face, he looks much better than he did yesterday.

Stubborn prick. If he had just let her help him, none of this would have happened.

Rey snorts softly. There are a lot of “ifs” where he is concerned, for all the good it has done her. 

She slowly relaxes and looks up at the sky in time to watch those same strange birds she spotted on their first day here. They’re too far away for her to make out any features, beyond the fact that they’re _big_. She has seen archival photos of the animals of earth, but these birds don’t resemble any of those. Their wings are too angular and their bodies long and narrow. 

She hopes they’re friendlier than whatever in the blue hell that creature had been last night. 

Rey rolls her neck to work out a kink there and wipes the sleep from her eyes. She wonders if it is 5:30am on Earth time and peers at her useless watch with a tremulous sigh. When she gets up, her ankle is in considerably less pain and she stretches, joints popping. Her ribs and shoulder feel better too; there is only a faint twinge of pain now. 

Thank god for tension bandages. 

She wanders to the shoreline, aiming a scowl at Matt’s sleeping form, before taking out the scanner. It beeps for a few seconds, disrupting the quiet of the river and surrounding jungle. The river contains hydrogen and oxygen - the essential components of the water on Earth. Mystified, Rey continues scanning, inwardly marvelling at how similar this world is to her own. And how different it is as well. The scanner beeps to indicate it has completed its survey and when the results flash on the tiny screen, she frowns. 

Hydrogen, oxygen and two other elements, but the scanner cannot identify them. 

Inconclusive is what is scrolled next to that reading and she snaps the scanner closed, eyeing the water with a wary wrinkle to her brows. She swallowed a lot of that water yesterday. Matt likely did as well. It had a sweet taste to it - that much she remembers. Perhaps whatever minerals are in the clay have altered the water, or there really are human-killing microbes in it. She doesn’t _feel_ sick but it probably would not be wise to continue drinking it. 

Which is going to be a huge problem before long. She is already thirsty and there’s a whole pristine river here to drink from but…

A shadow falls over her and she spins around, raising the scanner like a weapon, before a large hand catches her by the forearm and stops her progress. 

Matt stares down at her with an unreadable expression. His hair is sleep-rumpled, but otherwise, he looks wide awake and alert. She rips her arm out of his grasp and backs away a step. He stiffens as soon as she does this, his hand reaching out for her again before he falters and lowers it to his side. 

God, how is he so fucking _quiet_? 

“Don’t do that,” she snaps. 

He rolls his eyes like her anger is as inconsequential as a speck of dirt on his boots. 

“What were you doing?”

“Standing by the water,” she replies like he has the intelligence of a two-year-old. “Or is that some kind of crime now?”

Matt grinds his jaw angrily. “With the scanner. What were you doing with it?”

Rey considers not telling him out of spite. The bastard would not answer any of her questions before, so why should she return the favour? Granted, he was _technically_ tied to a chair at the time, but that’s all semantics as far as she’s concerned. 

“Checking the water to make sure it’s drinkable.” It’s almost painful, granting him any kind of quarter… but, she supposes he should know in case he tries to drink more of it. 

He stares down at her with that inscrutable look in his eyes before his lower eyelid twitches. 

“Are you planning on telling me if it is any time this fucking century, or should we just stand around and watch the grass grow?”

 _Deep breaths,_ she tells herself. _You can’t kill him. You… need him, as deplorable as that is. Once the shelter is built, no one would know if I “accidentally” pushed him off a cliff, so it wouldn’t technically be a felony…_

He goes to speak again, his face twisting with anger before she says it all in one breath. 

“The scan was inconclusive - there are some components similar to the water we would normally drink but it couldn’t tell me everything that is in it.” 

She’s glaring at him with such insolence by the end of it, it’s a wonder he doesn't combust on the spot from the might of her rage. 

He closes his mouth and glares down at the scanner in suspicion. This is not the first time she has seen him look at technology this way. The ship, BB8 and now the scanner - he must not have had access to much technology in whatever hole he crawled out of. 

“We’re not sick now.”

“That we know of,” Rey corrects automatically. 

His gaze snaps up to hers and there it is, there’s that dismissive blankness she hates with all her being. He brushes past her and starts walking up the embankment. 

“So you’re just going to drink the water without knowing what could be swimming around in it?” She follows after him, the blackness of his hair seeming to absorb all the light around him like he’s a goddamned plague for all things light and good. 

Which he is. 

“I think the sound of your voice will kill me long before anything else does.”

She lurches to a stop by a bush, gnashing her teeth together as he bends down under a low hanging branch and continues through the underbrush. She flicks a leaf off of the bush, watching it float serenely in the air before landing on the ground. 

Oh, it’s going to be a very tall cliff and she’ll make sure there’s lots of rocks and trees for him to bash into on the way down. 

*

Rey smells rancid. 

The humidity, coupled with the sweat and grime already coating her body from - let’s see - the sheer insanity of the last four days has not left her smelling like a bed of roses. She tries walking downwind from Matt, not because she cares what he thinks, but just to avoid any more smarmy remarks from him. 

He criticizes how slow she walks. He gets pissy when she stops to scan the bushes, or different bugs that she’s found, or just about anything. He acts like he is the only here without a bladder, or basic human functions and her stopping to pee is the gravest affront she could ever commit against him. He becomes surly when she tries asking his name again and they get into a screaming match right before dusk about the water situation. 

They’re by the river, perhaps fives miles from where they started this morning and no closer to finding a way to get back across to the hatch. It’s so hot and sticky, Rey feels like she’s walking through soup - until, that is, Matt gets in her face for the umpteenth time and then…

Things fall apart again. Spectacularly. 

“We aren’t sick, you jumped up bitch! You can do whatever the fuck you want, but I’m not wasting away from dehydration because that fucking gadget can’t tell its ass from a hole in the ground. Now get the fuck out of my way!”

“Would you lower your voice, you idiot!” she shouts - er, tells him in a very quiet, neutral tone. Her voice echoes back at her from the other side of the river, which might make her a hypocrite, but she’s had it with his Alpha macho bullshit. “I’m trying to help you but if you want to drink poisonous water, be my guest.”

He smiles at her then, revealing white and slightly crooked teeth, his eyes turning into that unnatural shade of green and his face flushing red. The effect is highly unnerving because that smile is anything but benevolent with the anger teeming in his eyes. Coupled with how wild and wavy his hair has gotten from the humidity, and the bandage haphazardly plastered across his face, he looks the very portrait of a rabid Alpha. 

Rey backs up a step, her heart racing in her chest.

“Oh, you’re trying to _help_ me. How silly of me to think other wise.” Definitely green now - his eyes are almost glowing at her in the dimness of the jungle shadows and she takes another unwitting step back, sputtering angrily and yes - just a touch scared of him now. “Pardon me for being somewhat confused when all you’ve done is try to beat me to death, cut up my face and then tie me to a fucking chair like a goddamned psychopath!”

“You were going to steal my ship! You were going to _kidnap_ me! And I wasn’t trying to beat you to death, I was just trying to stop you! This is your fault, not mine!”

She gets a whiff of his scent then; sour body odour, much like hers, but that other scent is there again too. Burnt pie crust and copper. She is already skittering backwards before he starts towards her with an irate snarl. 

“Because I told you I wouldn’t hurt you? Because I calmly asked you to listen to my instructions and _you still fucking attacked me_!” He yells this last part so loudly, some animal deep in the jungle startles with an indignant screech and takes off with a crash of branches and leaves. 

But Rey hardly notices anymore. 

“ _Because of what you are_!” she screams at him suddenly, backing against a tree and breathing heavily. 

In one second, he’s ten steps away from her and in the next, he is suddenly right there, his hands slamming into the bark of the tree on either side of her head and his wild, enraged face less than two inches from her own. 

She might have whimpered in fear, but she doesn’t know anymore because the only thing taking up her entire vision are those insane green eyes and the smell of his fury. 

“You don’t know a fucking thing about me,” Matt snarls into her face. 

He looks demented again, like he did when she accused him of killing the real Matt. The cords in his neck are popping out and the material of his stained and torn flight suit strains from how tense his muscles have gotten. 

She can only stare up at him in awe and fear as he completely and totally _loses_ it. 

“You don’t know anything about my people, about what we’ve been through, about the bullshit and lies _your kind_ has propagated for hundreds of years. You know dick all, little Beta, and you better fucking remember that the next time you go _accusing me of shit_!”

The small hairs around her temple and forehead shift as he screams in her face. She flinches, pressed as far back into the tree as humanly possible. She feels small and helpless beneath him, just as fragile and useless as he thinks of her as. She has no idea what he is talking about, but feels it’s wise not to say so. 

Matt glowers at her for one hot moment and then his hand slides down the bark, showering her hair and shoulder in small fibres, before grazing her shoulder. He suddenly cups her jaw but he doesn’t squeeze like she thinks he is going to. His grasp is firm and tight, like he _could_ squeeze if he wanted. Like he could rip her jaw right off her face. 

She makes a small, unhappy sound but he doesn’t let go, his skin blistering hot against her own. 

“I don’t need or want your help. You and I are not going to be friends, or partners, or any other foolish little idea you have spinning about in that fucked up head of yours. We’re stuck in this situation because you made baseless assumptions about me and my kind. Because you wouldn’t listen.” She goes to speak, but he growls and applies the slightest pressure to her jaw, effectively silencing her from speech. “So let’s get one thing straight, sister. There is no “we”. You can either get that through your head, or you can fuck off and get back to the hatch on your own. Your call.”

He stays like that for what feels like a lifetime, clutching her jaw and taking up all the air and space around her until she feels dizzy. She realizes that she is holding her breath and in the second before she reaches up and slaps him across his stupid, Alpha face, she realizes that she has not been this close to another human being in a very long time. 

And that he is the last human being she is likely ever to see again. 

What sparks through her, what makes her slap him upside his head and shove him away from her is not anger, or fear, or anything else. It is the profound and utterly consuming wretchedness of the fact that she did not fully appreciate or comprehend the magnitude of her future. That she is alone, on this strange planet, with someone who utterly despises her and that she is not going to be able to leave this, or him, or any of it. 

Matt yells when her palm meets his face, but by then she’s pushed off the tree and is jerkily marching away from him in the opposite direction they were going. She doesn’t say a word to him because she does not trust herself to speak at that moment. Besides, there is nothing more to say, is there?

And as she pushes through bushes and branches, mindless of where she is going, her vision splinters with the tears of her frustration, fear, but mostly bone-aching loneliness. 

Matt does not follow her this time.


	7. Dreams and Visions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey leans against the tree, riddled with fear and indecision, when the most unearthly sound she has ever heard erupts across the clearing. Shrill and throaty, and clamorous with malignancy, laughter resounds across this patch of jungle. It starts with one voice and soon others join in, cackling, chuckling and shrieking with demonic mirth in a riotous choir. 
> 
> Rey screams.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning ahead for graphic violence. For once, though, it's not between our MCs. 
> 
> Maybe, Rey and "Matt" will finally learn to play nice... ;)

Rey squints at the water lapping to shore, about to step forward to investigate when she changes her mind. 

At first glance, the tiny animal sunbathing on a rock looks so much like a frog that she thinks she might be hallucinating she is back home. On the base, Lieutenant Leach had a tank with frogs in it. She was something of an amphibious nut, which Rey found strange but not as weird as the other officers did. Leach’s specialty was marine biology and she claimed to have the last three species of frogs alive on Earth in those tanks. 

Rey always thought her frogs were cute. She would feed them sometimes and watch the way their little throats would balloon with their breathing, utterly fascinated. 

But when she gets a closer look at this creature, she realizes that it is really nothing like a frog. It’s skin, which she mistook as the shiny and elastic texture of the frogs in Leach’s tanks, is actually covered in fine, silvery fur. She also does not recall ever seeing a frog slam its face in the water and devour a fish-like animal twice its size in one bite and then belch so loudly, it could have given some of the officers back home a run for their money. 

She catches a glimpse of its teeth and is profoundly thankful she did not attempt to approach it. Instead, she aims her scanner at it and documents the animal as she has done with every other bug, plant, and creature she has encountered since parting ways with…

Rey hums under her breath in an effort to tune out the steady thrum of her fury. 

She does not even want to think about his name, even though it  _ isn’t  _ his fucking name. Even though he’s a lying, righteous prick that could…

No. And no. And fucking  _ no _ . She isn’t going to think about their argument, or his stupid Alpha face. Or any of it. Which might not be mature or logical (two things Rey has always prized about herself) but she’s past the point of caring. 

She’s thirsty, starving, and bored out of her skull. The only reason she is taking time to document the life she has encountered is to distract herself from the looming panic dogging her every step. She has already passed the tall cliff’s edge that she is fairly certain she and  _ him  _ took a nosedive off two days ago. The river is widening if anything and she considers turning back, she really does, but… They might run into each other. Or maybe he’s already dead. 

Despite her anger with him, that thought does not bring her comfort. 

The scanner beeps at her, indicating once again that while the creature has some biological components similar to the life of Earth, (it has a stomach, for instance, and acid in its gut for digestion) but much of its DNA is inconclusive. 

In the blank bar at the top of the readout, she eyes the amphibious creature thoughtfully and nods to herself. 

_ Jiraiya _ . 

Back home, she spent much of her free time reading about mythology and lore. It was the only way she could fall asleep before big exams and training sessions. She remembers the little frog-like creatures from Japanese myths and decides to go with that name. 

There should be a measure of excitement, she thinks, travelling these lands and discovering new life. That she is the one who gets to document and catalogue these creatures, to name them whatever her heart desires. 

But all she can focus on is the hunger gnawing in her guts and the sandpaper dryness of her throat. The river water is starting to look more tempting. 

*

She’s glad Matt is not here to see this. She imagines he would be triumphant with his smugness and that would turn into another opportunity to attack her character and general existence. 

But he isn’t here, so when she cups her hands into the river to drink more water, she only feels a little paranoid. She couldn’t hold off any longer. She felt like she was going to float away with the breeze if she didn’t have something to drink. 

The water is just as sweet as she remembers. 

It would probably be wiser to find a way to start a fire to kill any microbes floating in the river but it’s too late for that now. If she stays down here any longer, then she might have to consider… eating something. 

Rey cringes at the thought of hunting and killing an animal. She’s always had a squeamish stomach and hates the idea of killing anything. But if it is between that and starving to death, then she doesn’t have much of a choice. There’s a huge risk of being poisoned, but…

She’s running out of options. 

The sky turns pink and gold with sunrise. Last night she slept in a tree, her sleep so light that she woke up at the slightest sound. She doesn't relish sleeping outside, exposed to the elements, but it’s not like there’s a hotel around the river’s bend. So far, no bugs have bitten her, which she considers to be a damned miracle. Perhaps just because they don’t know what to make of her alien blood. There are some adrenaline pens in the medkit but she would really rather not use those. She never had to deal with severe allergies on Earth and that doesn’t seem to be an issue on this planet so far, but luck has not been on her side lately. 

Rey pauses to peer up the three moons in the sky. 

They’re waning, she thinks. One of them is red and reminds her of Mars, all desert pitted and arid slopes. The other two are white and loom larger in the sky, their craters fully visible as whatever star rules this system shines strong sunlight off their orbital spheres. The air here, while humid and misty most of the day, seems to clear up in the mornings right before dawn. She can see the moons with perfect clarity. 

Rey opens up a new notation on the scanner. She types two names in, then peers up at the third moon. The red one, so alike Mars yet so far away. She types in a third name and though she doesn’t quite smile, there is an exhausted and tentative joy that lights up her hazel eyes, if only for a moment. 

Luna and Nox for the two white moons. Athena for the red moon. 

Rey flips the scanner closed and wipes sweat from her forehead with her arm. It’s a small thing, inconsequential even, but it’s something. A small sense of accomplishment, the happiness that comes with discovery. 

Soon, she rises to her feet, stretching her arms and legs, and then continues on her journey. 

*

She finds a bush with berries just before sundown. 

The scanner indicates that there is sugar and amino acids inside the berry but - and drumroll here - the rest is inconclusive. She eyes the little pile of berries she has picked, her mouth salivating so much she has to swallow every few seconds. 

The last thing she had to eat were crackers and peanut butter. Her stomach is beginning to knot itself from the hunger, making her wince and keel over every so often. She’s never been so hungry in her entire life. 

The river water has not killed her - not yet anyway - but that doesn’t mean these berries won’t. She remembers her parent’s garden back home. There were berries that grew along the fence and she and her brother were not allowed to eat them. 

“Those are poisonous,” her father had said to her when she showed them to him, “throw them right on the ground and don’t let me see you picking those again.”

It’s a harsh memory, but she knows now that he was only trying to protect her. If he could see her now, she imagines his tone would be just as sharp and stern. She blows an errant strand of hair out of her face and then plucks up the berries to put in a small pouch inside the medkit. If she gets desperate enough, she’ll eat them. 

Just as Rey goes to climb a tree to rest in for the night, a new sound reaches her ears. 

She pauses, eyes going wide and heart slamming in her chest. That was definitely a surprised shout, further down the trail she has been using, followed by three successive cries. They almost sound like hooting; guttural and primitive. 

However, it is the first shout that has all her attention. That sounded unmistakably like Matt. 

“Shit,” Rey hisses. “Shit, shit, shit.”

She pushes off the tree and leaps into the grass, ducking down and trying to look everywhere at once. He’s in trouble. The hooting is new too, something she has not encountered yet. Her hunger pangs fade away under a pall of fright, her body trembling with renewed nerves. She’s undecided in what she wants to do. She has no weapons - all she has is a scanner and a medical kit. She hasn’t eaten anything in almost three days and whatever that hooting came from, it sounded like more than one  _ thing  _ making that sound. 

It sounded like a whole goddamned platoon. 

_ I don’t need or want your help. _

Matt’s words occur to her again, as they have at nauseum for the last day and a half. Well, it looks like he does need her help after all. 

Another shout resounds across the jungle, closer than the first time. Matt - it’s definitely Matt yelling. 

“Fuck!” Rey whispers in her hand, struggling to stay as quiet as possible. 

She makes a break for the underbrush, the shadows of night’s approach growing darker with each passing minute. The scanner has a small light on it, but if she uses it, whoever or  _ whatever  _ is out there will see her right away. She carries on the gloom, moving as quickly as possible without tripping over branches and roots. If Matt was this close behind her, he was either chased back this way or… 

He was following her. After his grand speech and his dickish antics, he  _ followed  _ her. 

She doesn’t have time to be pissed about that, or to even puzzle  _ why  _ he would be following her when he hates her so much. She crawls over a felled tree, trying to keep her breathing quiet and even as she hurries to where she heard the commotion. The jungle has gone eerily still, with only the rhythm section of the bugs and the euphonious wind weaving through the trees filling that gaping silence. 

Before long, Rey comes to a small clearing and crouches within the grass. It’s gotten so dark she can hardly make out the trees from the sky. The mists hang heavy over the jungle, blotting out the moonlight. She catches her breath, shivering even though it’s not cold. 

Nothing moves or makes a sound. 

The longer she hovers on the edge of the clearing, the more ominous she finds that silence. There is something speculative about the yawning shadows, something watchful and waiting. The nape of her neck prickles, her instincts kicking up into overdrive when a branch snaps nearby. She holds her breath, blinking perspiration from her eyes and trembling violently. 

Something is here. She can feel it, the way antelopes can sense a stalking cheetah. Something is here and moreover, whatever it is knows that she is here too. 

With painful slowness, Rey creeps to her left where she can just make a large tree with low hanging branches. She needs more cover. Every move feels wrong, like something might leap upon her at any moment. She has no idea if it’s more of those creatures who attacked them at the hatch, or something else entirely. She’s cursing herself for ever coming after Matt, even though she knows full well there was never any choice for her. She can’t just leave another human being to die, even if that human is a beast and an asshole with a shitty attitude and even shittier temper. 

Rey makes it to the tree and halts there, every muscle in her body tensed and poised to flee. Her legs strain from remaining crouched for so long and her heart feels like it’s going to explode out of her chest. The feeling of being watched grows stronger until she feels like every shadow around her might be the thing that’s going to tear her to shreds. 

She shifts in the grass, using her hands to help her steer her around the tree when her foot slides over a hard, cylindrical object. She chokes on her breath, pressing her mouth into her arm to staunch the sound. When nothing pounces on her, or so much as makes a sound, she pulls in a breath and closes her eyes. With an unsteady hand, she reaches down to see what tripped her. 

At first, she doesn’t understand what she is holding. The object is wet and cool to the touch, like a metal spring. Then, Rey’s breath catches again. 

It’s the coil. It’s the fucking coil, which Matt had, and it’s covered in…

She sniffs the coil and gags, holding it away from her face. It doesn’t  _ smell  _ like blood, at least not human blood, but there is definitely a wet substance all over it. It’s too dark for her to see and she decides she doesn’t want to know. 

She hangs onto it anyways. 

Her terror blooms into a cold fist in her stomach. If Matt doesn’t have the coil anymore that means they could have taken him, or he’s… A small shivery breath leaves her and she swallows thickly, trying to keep calm even though every nerve in her body is firing off like a rocket engine. 

What if he’s dead? And if he isn’t, just where the fuck is he?

_ Okay… okay Rey, think. What’s the next step? _

Hiding sounds like a great idea. But she’s wandered too far from the river to feel at all safe in trying to make her way back and if Matt’s out here somewhere, injured or held captive, she has to help him. 

Rey leans against the tree, riddled with fear and indecision, when the most unearthly sound she has ever heard erupts across the clearing. Shrill and throaty, and clamorous with malignancy,  _ laughter  _ resounds across this patch of jungle. It starts with one voice and soon others join in, cackling, chuckling and  _ shrieking  _ with demonic mirth in a riotous choir. 

Rey screams - she doesn’t mean to but that laughter is so awful in its menace, so garish in its seething good cheer, that she covers her ears and moans in terror, slamming into the tree and stumbling back into the underbrush in an effort to escape. 

All rationality has flown out the window as she flees for her life. On and on that laughter goes, following her as she scampers through the forest like a scared child, her face a pale, terrified oval in the dark. She’s running so fast, that when something large and hulking steps into her path, she doesn’t have time to stop. 

But it doesn’t matter in the end. 

Something hard collides with the back of her head and she’s already unconscious before she crashes into the jungle floor. 

*

For a long time, there is only darkness. 

Rey is a lucid dreamer. She has been this way since childhood. Awakened in the night by nightmares for most of her young years (often featuring reins and an easily spooked horse), she had learned how to self-soothe after her parents died and she went to live in the underground bunkers. 

The nannies did their best with the children, but there were just so many orphans that they could not keep up. Unlike most of the children, Rey adapted. She survived loneliness, neglect, and abject aloneness. Swaddling herself in blankets, tucking in all the edges and burrowing her head beneath her pillow - the first time the nannies found her like this, they thought she was dead. 

She just liked to sleep this way, like her parents were cuddling her when they never would again. 

When dreaming, she could wrestle control over her nightmares with ease by the time she hit adolescence, which would explain her predilection for waking up at the same time every morning. She could unweave the yawning terror of her worst dreams and change them into something pleasant. She did this all on her own and when she grew up and forgot how sharp that pain could be, it was because she had numbed herself so efficiently over the years that nothing could penetrate her armor of logic, reason and pragmatism. 

Sometimes, though, they were cracks in that armor. Her dreams always seem to find a way through, perhaps because she could not amass any sense of logic, reason or pragmatism. In her sleep, she was at the mercy of her own mind. 

Rey is reminded of this quite keenly when she realizes that she is not quite awake yet. 

She feels strange, limbs unnaturally heavy and the blackness of this dream suffocating. Her mouth tastes like cotton and there is a faint pain in the back of her head. She knows she must wake up but it’s like trying to run in water. The tendrils of the waking world float above her, just out of perception. She cannot grasp onto them like she normally would. She moans in her sleep, blood caking her hair and her hands and feet bound with rope. She is sweating so much, her clothes stick to her. 

_ Wake up,  _ her mother is calling to her, even though she has been dead for a very long time.  _ Wake up Rey. It’s time for school. They’re going to do another drill today and you can’t be late… _

“Mum?” she mumbles, her tongue sticking to the roof of her mouth. “I don’t want to… I don’t…”

Harsh clicking goes off near her head and she flinches from the sound and the odd way it reverberates in her eardrums. That sound stretches out for an eternity, it seems, shrill and sharp. Something pokes her arm, stinging and then burning. She tries to draw away, but her body feels like it has been stuffed with lead. 

“ _ Hey! _ What the fuck are you doing?”

... _ Matt _ ? 

A tiny voice whispers this in the back of Rey’s head. A flutter of recognition goes through her, followed by a stronger pulse of awareness. Matt… is here? Matt…

When her eyes open, she immediately closes them, wincing and moaning from the bright light. Everything hurts. Even her bloody ears hurt. God, what the hell happened? Where is she? She opens her eyes again, this time prepared for the burning light. It takes a few hard blinks to subside before she realizes she is inside a shelter of some sort. There is a cloth roof over her head, about four feet tall. The floor is made of dirt and she can definitely taste something strange in her mouth. Like alcohol but weirder and more potent. 

She gags on the taste and after a brief struggle with her stomach, vomits on the floor in front of her. She’s lucky she was lying on her side or she would have choked on it. 

Panic is torpid, oozing into her senses like tar. She cannot move her hands or feet. She pulls on her restraints and deduces through the cloudy haze in her mind that she has been tied up with some kind of rope. Focusing on anything right now is difficult. Her vision is blurred, but more than that, the light seems to swell and retract in a hazy kaleidoscope of colour. She drools a little, her expression taking on a dull, bemused blankness typically adorned by those in the grips of an opiod high. 

_ Wake up Rey,  _ her mother’s voice calls to her once more, only now she sounds faint and faraway. As distant as the Earth. 

There is something very important she needs to focus on right now. This feeling is not normal and for a long moment, she fights her way to it. Logic, reason, pragmatism - these concepts might as well be gibberish to her right now, but somehow… Somehow, they leach back to her, just a little. She just has to think this through, like everything else. It’s just another puzzle, waiting to be solved. 

What did she have to eat and drink in the last twenty four hours? 

River water. And river water. 

Is it possible she poisoned herself?

Yes, but unlikely. She drank that water several days before that and did not experience any adverse effects. 

Okay, if not the water, then what  _ else  _ happened yesterday? 

The screaming. The  _ hooting  _ and  _ laughter  _ in the jungle. She was running before, wasn’t she? Running for her damned life, but then something hit her in the back of the head and…

_ Come on, kid. You can do this! Just think, goddamnit, THINK,  _ the voice of logic says to her - though, come to think of it, logic does not have its own voice, does it? It seems far more likely that she’s just high as a kite and that voice is a product of… And then, the bemused expression clears from her face, just a little. 

Then, she’s got it. 

Drugged. She’s been  _ drugged _ . That would explain the awful taste in her mouth. 

From the next room, there is suddenly a loud commotion. Rey flinches at the sound and very nearly rolls into her vomit. Panting harshly and trying to blink through a series of colourful and distracting visual auras, there is a shout from the next room that is most definitely Matt and then low growling. When something makes a dull smacking sound, followed by a thud to the floor, Rey closes her eyes and suppresses a fearful whimper. 

She is pretty sure that was Matt who just fell to the floor. Which means she is in trouble. Which means they are  _ both _ in trouble. 

She can barely recall her own name right now, let alone attempt to get out of these bindings and find something to defend herself with. But she’s going to do it anyways. She is going to do it just like she has done every other hard and impossible thing in the last fucking week. If the things in the next room have drugged her and Matt, then they likely do not mean them any good will. 

For a moment, the drug coursing through her veins intensifies. She sees butterflies, as translucent as snowflakes and just as sparkly, fluttering in her vision. Dark webs encroach around her and she knows if she doesn’t do something soon, she is going to fall unconscious again. 

And then who knows what will happen to her after that. 

With great effort, Rey manages to roll the other way (away from her vomit) until she is facing the wall. She is seized by a spell of dizziness so acute she thinks she is going to pass out anyway, but somehow she breathes through it until the room stops spinning. She realizes there must be a fire going nearby because she can see quite well in this room. Then her gaze happens upon a long and pointy object, propped up against the wall roughly ten feet away. 

It looks like a staff of some sort, with a long blade on the end. 

“Come on,” she whispers to herself, or at herself - she is not entirely sure at this point. All it takes is for her to envision herself being cooked like a pig roast before she starts to painfully shimmy her way across the dirt floor. 

Her hair hangs in her eyes and dirt speckles her skin from the sweat clinging there but she keeps going, her heart beating unevenly in her chest and her throat raw from puking. The silence in the other room is just as ominous as the laughter in the jungle and she has to force herself not to think of Matt. 

And that he might be dead already. 

After what feels like hours, she finally gets to the staff. With some awkward maneuvering and two more awful dizzy spells, she gets her wrists lined up with the bladed end. Her blood rushes in her ears so loudly she is afraid everyone can hear it. She closes her mouth in an effort to keep her breathing quiet and starts rubbing her bindings back and forth against the blade. She is not convinced the blade is sharp enough until she accidentally cuts her hand open. 

_ “Fuck _ ,” she hisses, closing her eyes and sagging against the wall. 

Doesn’t matter. Doesn’t. Matter. She keeps going after a pained moan, rubbing more furiously than ever. Any second, she will be found - so great is her paranoia that even the flicker of shadows and light on the wall feel evil to her. She thought Alphas and Omegas were depraved - well, she still does. But she would happily take Matt right now over whatever is in here with them. She still hasn’t seen it - or  _ them _ \- but if they are the same things that were laughing in the jungle last night, then she wants to get out of here as quickly as possible. 

Suddenly, the rope around her wrists breaks apart. 

She bites her tongue against the victorious cry that wants to tear itself from her mouth and quickly bends to untie her feet. Her fingers don’t want to cooperate, but after a few seconds of silent struggling, she is finally loose. 

From the next room, she hears movement. 

Rey goes still. Her heart is a beast, trying to tear itself from her chest. The pain in her head grows sharper, but it’s nothing next to the fear locking her to stillness. Light shimmers in faint geometric patterns, but whatever they gave her is wearing off now, likely because she vomited it up. 

Her hand closes around the staff. 

The handle is grainy and her skin rasps against it, slicked with sweat. She moves into a crouch, her legs protesting the movement and muscles stiff. The air feels heavy, laden with the possibility of violence and blood. She isn’t really thinking anymore, which is a terrifying prospect for her. She is all instinct now. Her skin swells into clusters of goosebumps and every time she swallows, her throat clicks. 

As she brings the staff in front of her, the bladed end smacks off a crate at her side. 

Footsteps pound across the floor in the next room and Rey a pitiful sound of fear. Three creatures suddenly fill the doorway. They are bipedal, but that is about as far as their resemblance to humans goes. Standing a mere four feet tall and with strange grey clothes covering their faces, they make a hooting sound at her, deep and croaky. 

Another sound fills the air, a terrified shriek that for a very long time, Rey does not realize is coming from herself. She screams and screams, but she is too far gone to acknowledge that it is her doing the screaming. 

And then she strikes. 

They’re holding misshapen clubs, likely hand-carved. She doesn’t give them the time to use them. When the first one approaches her with a beseeching hoot, she raises the staff in the air and smashes it down, over and over again. The other two run forward, their arms long enough to reach halfway down their legs and their mouths filled with tiny needle-like teeth. She hits them too, knocking one ass over keel into some crates and the other straight into the wall. 

She doesn’t wait around to see if they are dead or not. 

Rey flees into the next room and immediately spots Matt on the floor. He is bound like she was, and his head is bleeding a little. He blinks blearily at her, likely awoken by her screaming. She checks over her shoulder, ready to bash the creature’s heads in, but they’re all on the floor. They’re motionless, but she doesn’t have it in her right now to feel guilty. 

Dropping the staff into the dirt next to her, she tumbles to her knees next to Matt and goes to work on his binds. His are tied a lot tighter than hers and he has cuts and bruises on his face. She imagines it took more to restrain him than her, even with whatever poison is coursing through their system. 

Matt moans and pulls away from her, mumbling incoherently under his breath. 

“Shut up,” she hisses at him, eyes wild with fear and checking over her shoulder every two seconds. “I’m trying to help you, you relentless hillock.”

He mutters something that sounds suspiciously like “bitch” and she figures he is not too far gone to still be an insufferable prick. She finally gets him untied when she happens upon a small workbench behind him. 

Her blood runs cold. 

An assortment of knives winks at her from the firelight. Each is long and menacing looking, some of the blades sharp while others are jagged. When she sees what looks very much like a crudely made bone-saw, she doesn’t feel an ounce of remorse anymore. 

They were going to kill them.  _ Eat  _ them, from the looks of it. 

After a second of indecision, Rey grabs three knives and stuffs them in her belt. As she rolls Matt over to help him up, his eyes suddenly narrow and then his hand is grabbing onto her collar to yank her down to him. 

“What… what the fuck ‘re you… doing?” he rasps. 

“What do you think?” she snaps without much bite. She is far too terrified for sarcasm right now. 

“We… we need to leave,” he grits out as though just the effort of forming words is too much for him. His hair is tangled and hanging in limp strands over his eyes, and she winces when she sees a nasty cut by his hairline. 

The medkit. She has to find the it. 

“Stay here,” she whispers, but he doesn’t let go of her jacket. With great difficulty, she peels his fingers off her and raises a hand in his face when he goes to grab her again. “I have to find the medkit.  _ Stay here _ .”

It is with grave misgivings that she reaches up and shoves one of the knives in his hands. He drops it before scrabbling to pick it up again. He’s more fucked up than she is, which leads her to think that they might have given him another dose of poison. He would need it too, the oversized oak tree. 

She crawls around the room, searching the tables for medkit, but it is nowhere in sight. They need it. Not only is the scanner in it, but all their medical supplies they will need to treat their wounds. 

Rey turns back to the other room, shaking madly. She doesn’t want to go back in there. She has no idea if those things are still alive and they were going to fucking  _ eat  _ them. She is absolutely certain of that now. 

But if the kit isn’t in here, then it is in that room.

“Shit,” she mutters before wiping the sweat from her eyes. Okay. Okay, she can do this. 

She approaches the room as quietly as possible and pauses on the threshold to withdraw one of the knives. Two of the creatures are on the ground still and the other is laying on its side by the crates. She has no idea if they breathe so she has no way of knowing if they’re dead or not. She raises the knife, her hand trembling so badly it is a wonder she doesn’t drop it. It takes every ounce of her willpower to make herself step over one of them, her gaze sweeping across the room and snapping back to them. 

Then, she sees it.

The medkit is laying on top of a shelf on the far wall. She can see the scanner poking out of it in a peek of silver and takes a small relieved breath. The creatures do not stir, so with a pacifying breath, Rey tiptoes over them, suspended in a spell of drug-induced bleariness and taut fright. The knife is a formidable weight in her hand, the blade curved and narrow. 

She stops a few feet away from the kit with one of the creatures between her and the wall. She doesn’t want to walk over it - the drugs are trying to convince her that she is about to die at any second and if she remains in this room another moment longer, the floor will swallow her up. She fights through the horror-haze, a bead of sweat stinging in her eye as she stares at the medkit and wills herself to reach out to it. 

_ Wake up Rey,  _ her mother whispers one final time and even though it is just in her head, even though her mother is nothing but ash, even though she knows it’s the drugs making her heart stutter and leap, she is convinced that she is with her in that sticking moment. Hovering in the corner of her eye, a dark mother shape always beyond reach. 

Her eyes shift in that direction, her fingers inches away from the medkit, when she realizes that there  _ is  _ something there. Standing just a few feet away. 

But it’s not her mother. 

The creature that had been lying by the crate is no longer on the floor. It stands about ten feet away and though later she will question if it was the poison or drugs or whatever the hell they had been given, she cannot know for certain and that is the scariest thing of all. She cannot be sure that what she saw was real or not, but right now, it does not matter. 

The thing, which had looked somewhat human in build before, has changed. It’s head is no longer oval shaped, like her own and it’s limbs are no longer hanging limply at its side. The wraps on their heads serve a purpose and she is now seeing what that purpose is; long tentacles whip around where the thing’s head used to be and it takes Rey a slow, disbelieving and  _ horrified  _ blink of her eyes to realize that is because the tentacles  _ are  _ its head. That they had been curled up like a ball, the way a dead spider’s legs do, and now they are flailing around. 

The hooting sound is coming from the largest one and this is its mouth - all needle teeth and croaking hoots. 

“Oh god,” she thinks she says, but she is not really aware of anything in that moment. All her friends - logic, reason and pragmatism - have promptly fled for their lives, deep in the recesses of her mind not currently detonating into paralyzing panic. 

Rey does not have time to bring the knife up. 

The creature does not jump so much as  _ fly  _ across the room, skittering on legs that move so fast they’re a blur. She has never seen anything move that fast before and therefore, when it descends upon her, her brain cannot compute it. 

She hits the floor hard, knocking into the crates and other random supplies. Her shoulder, still healing from being torn out of its socket less than a week ago, flares in bright agony and then she is screaming her head off, though whether from fear, pain or pure insanity she can no longer tell. The tentacles brush against her face and she heaves against the thing, shrieking at the cool slime that touches her skin. The tentacle with teeth snaps at her face, missing her nose by scant inches when she twists her head away with a shrill cry. 

It’s heavy - heavier than Matt even. She can’t push it off of her and she can’t get her arm up to stab it. This is it. She’s going to die here on this floor. This thing is going to rip her face off and she can’t get it off, she can’t,  _ shecan’tshecan’tshecan’tfuckingbreathe _ . 

The tentacle rises up in the air and seems to regard her, even though it doesn’t have eyes that she can see. She screams again until her throat goes raw and then it lunges down at her - right for her throat. She closes her eyes against it, thinking of home, her mother and for some reason that is beyond comprehension, the horse she once petted on the farm in England. She waits for excruciating pain, for blackness absolute…

But it never comes. 

Instead, there’s a thump, a thick meaty sound and then cool wetness splashes across her chest and face. She knows the smell that greets her nostrils then - it is the same smell as the blood she found on the coil earlier, when she was looking for Matt in the jungle. 

It’s the thing’s  _ blood _ . 

The tentacled monster  _ roars _ but then there are more meaty sounds and it suddenly slumps against her, knocking the air from her lungs. She turns away, crying and spitting acridness from her mouth, and realizes that she is staring at a pair of familiar boots. 

When she looks up again, the creature is being hauled off her and it is Matt who is there. His skin is worryingly pale and he’s covered in sweat, but he manages to shove the thing off of her the rest of the way before stumbling sideways into the wall. The knife is in his hand, covered in gore. She can’t even bear to look at the thing that attacked her and so she scrambles to her feet, woozy and wiping furiously at her face. Its blood is blue. Like the popsicles her father used to sneak to her when she was well behaved. Bright, neon blue. 

If she had anything left in her stomach, she would puke all over again. 

“You good or do you need another hour?”

Rey looks up and glares at Matt, but before she can tell him off, he slips further down the wall and makes a low pained sound. He looks terrible. She doesn’t even know how he managed to kill that thing in his state. 

She pushes off the wall and grabs the medkit from the shelf, slinging it over her shoulder. 

“Come on,” she murmurs instead of insulting him like she wants to. She is still incredibly pissed with him, but this isn’t the time or place to air her grievances. There might be more of those things and they need to get back to the hatch. 

She crosses the room to him, but he flinches away from her when she goes to pull him to his feet. 

Rey pauses, her hand held out between them and not quite dropping. He still doesn’t trust her. Well, she doesn’t really trust him either, so they’re even on that accord. 

And yet, he just saved her life. Again. 

She chews her lip, closing her eyes against another dizzy spell, before dropping her hand. She comes a little closer, ignoring the way he tenses up and struggles to remain upright. 

“Matt,” Rey says as calmly as she can considering she almost had her throat torn out by a creature with tentacles for a head, “we need to leave. And we can do that together, where we have a better chance of surviving, or you can try dragging yourself out of here by yourself.”

He looks furious just then, but she is past the point of caring. 

“I already said -”

“Yeah. I know.” Against her better judgment, she reaches out for him anyway and closes a hand around his left bicep. He’s boiling hot to the touch, as always, and she ignores this too. He releases a low growl, but she shakes her head at him, too exhausted and frightened to be fazed by his aggression now. “You can hate me all you want but we have to get out of here. You won’t make it very far on your own and we both know it. Just… you saved my life.”

“Again.” But he doesn’t sound smug like he normally would. He sounds like his insides are being mulched into pulp. 

“Right. Well, consider this an even trade.”

He grits his teeth, his face screwed up, whether it’s from pain or from whatever the drugs are doing to him. She feels a small sliver of empathy for him then, but mostly she’s impatient. They need to  _ go _ , doesn’t he understand that?

“For this one thing, then.” 

Though she suspects he would have said more if he was not in this state.

Rey rolls her eyes and pushes her shoulder under his arm. He reeks of burnt pie and sweat, but she manages to breathe through her mouth to avoid it. Neither of them is winning any beauty contests right now and they need to get out here. 

Matt growls when she manages to hoist him to his feet, the two of them stumbling so badly they almost crash to the floor. Somehow, she keeps them upright, and then they leave this horrible room and go into the next. She considers taking the rest of the knives but they don’t have anywhere to put them. 

They come to a flap in the wall and then, they are outside again. The bugs sing and the humid wind blows by and she doesn’t think she’s ever been more grateful in her life than now to be outside again. It’s dark still, though she has no idea if it is the same night or not. 

And frankly, she doesn’t give a shit. 

They stumble into the jungle, leaving the horrors of the night behind. 

*

Matt can’t walk anymore and she doesn’t think she can for much longer either. 

It’s too dark to see where they’re going, so when they come upon a slight incline of rocks, Rey takes them that way. She’s practically carrying him up those rocks, hissing and grunting in a very unlady-like fashion under his bulk. How much does this motherfucker weigh?

They’ve been very fortunate not to run into anything else. She hasn’t heard that horrid laughter and she hopes she never does again. She isn’t convinced that laughter came from the same things that took them hostage. Which is not reassuring at all, but there’s nothing to be done about it now. 

The longer they go, the less coherent Matt becomes. They’re both sweating, but he is much more profusely by the time they settle down in between two gigantic stones. They provide a little shelter and if Rey strains her ears enough, she can hear running water nearby. 

She hopes it’s the river. 

They won’t be investigating it tonight though. She’s exhausted, sore and faint from the adrenaline rush of tonight’s events. She just wants to sleep. She settles Matt against the rocks and he sags there until he’s curled on his side on the ground. She wants nothing more than to do the same, but his deteriorating condition has become concerning. 

They definitely drugged him more than they did to her. 

She rifles through the medkit and finds some injections of antibiotics and steroids. He doesn’t even stir when she injects him. She pulls the collar of his shirt down to administer the needle in his shoulder and pauses, eyes widening. 

In the weak moonlight, she sees a distinctly round spot on his throat. It looks pinkish, but she can’t be entirely sure in the dark. His hair has fallen over enough that she can see another one just like it on the nape of his neck, slightly larger than the one on his throat. 

Rey is careful not to touch them when she injects him and afterward, she fixes his collar so they’re covered up again, watching as he falls into unconsciousness. 

She thinks she knows what they are, but she isn’t entirely sure. He’s the first Alpha she’s ever met, after all, and her science teachers didn’t exactly focus on demi-human physiology in bio class. She crawls a little ways from him and leans against the rock behind her, closing up the medkit and propping her chin on one raised knee to regard him with a measure of wary curiosity. 

Glands. She’s pretty sure the things on his neck are glands. That’s where their weird scent comes from, apparently. Or least, that is what she was told at one point or another. 

She thinks about what he screamed at her a few days ago. 

_ You don’t know anything about my people, about what we’ve been through, about the bullshit and lies your kind has propagated for hundreds of years. _

Rey doesn’t know that she believes him. Not after the way he has behaved, not after the shit he has pulled and his whole general awful demeanor but… He saved her life tonight and he saved it before, when that wolf-like animal chased them. 

He didn’t have to. He could have left her for dead both times but he didn’t. 

She doesn’t know where that leaves them, only that he might have - just a tiny bit - of humanity in him. That of all the stories she has heard about Alphas being violent murderers and rapists has not really proven true - at least not with him. She still doesn’t like or trust him, and most of the time, she would like nothing more than to smack him upside his stupid head but maybe, if she can convince him for two seconds that they’re better off finding their way back to the hatch together, there might be some hope they can get through this together. 

If the last twenty-four hours has taught her anything, it’s that they don’t have a chance in hell of making it on their own. Not with everything on this planet hellbent on killing them. 

With these thoughts in mind, Rey drifts off into a troubled sleep. She hears her mother calling to her again calling for her to wake up, that it’s time for her to get to class. 

But no matter how hard she tries, she can’t see her face. 


	8. Fragile Bridges

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He’s going to leave. Or he’ll stay here and she will leave because this was never going to work. She knew that the moment they crashed here. It was stupid of her to even try, but she did because she thought it was the best and really, the only plan she had. 
> 
> “What are your concessions?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have another :D

Rey comes up with a few more names while Matt sleeps. 

Fenrirs - that is what she has decided to call the wolf-creature that chased them from the hatch. She doesn’t have a scan on fenrirs yet and she doesn’t want one either. That would involve having to get up close to them and she really likes all her limbs right where they are, thanks. She goes with Scylla for the tentacle monsters. The word comes from an old Greek legend about nereid that was turned into a great tentacled sea monster, devouring men whole on their ships. She feels the name is apt and does a quick scan of the blood all over her clothes to document them. 

Not that anyone aside from herself will ever look at these notations. 

Lastly, she ponders what she heard the night before in the jungle. That awful laughter - well, she won’t be forgetting that anytime soon. She makes a separate notation and as she’s typing the scant notes about them that she has, she remembers a book she read once when she was a teenager. It was one of the few novels that survived the blast, an actual hard copy of a book that she had borrowed from the bunker’s quaint library. 

She doesn’t remember what it was called, only that it was by some horror writer with a penchant for setting his novels in Maine. In the story, when the heroine travels to another dimension in search of her husband, she encounters creatures in the woods that she cannot see. But she can hear them. They laughed in that story, too. 

Laughers, they had been called. 

She stares down at the scanner and then types the name into the log. It’s not mythical or elegant like the other names she has come up with so far, but then there wasn’t anything elegant about whatever those things were. They sounded insane. 

Now, she just hopes they don’t have another run-in with _any_ of these creatures. 

Rey glances over to Matt’s unconscious form, observing the way his face softens in sleep. He is almost unrecognizable without his perennial scowl and narrowed eyes. She documents the changes the same way she has documented every other creature on this planet. Just because she’s tired and hungry and bored, and she can’t make herself get up from where she is sitting against the rocks. 

She can’t imagine him smiling. She can’t imagine him without those cuts on his face, with any trace of warmth or light. Maybe it’s because she has only known him in violence, whether it’s violence between them, or violence towards the things that want to kill them. 

Rey feels it again. That biting loneliness that makes her chest tight and her eyes prickle. She is not ridiculous enough to care that he doesn’t like her because she doesn’t like him either. She’s never really cared about other people’s opinions anyways. Always the swotty bookworm in school, always the know-it-all in training - oh, she knows people tend not to like her. 

But she’s never had another person hate her on the molecular level that Matt does with her. There is nothing she can do to change his mind, even if she cared to. Nothing she can say to sway him to her side. 

The only thing they have in common, as far as she knows, is they both want to live. And that is going to have to be enough for right now because they _won’t_ live if they carry on this way. Fighting and arguing and going at it alone. 

Matt sighs in his sleep and she tenses up, waiting for his eyes to open and the accusations to fly. He presses his face into his arm and doesn’t stir again, his breathing remaining lax and even. She frowns at the gesture, at the way it is almost childlike and…

Vulnerable. 

Rey glances away from him, unable to dispel that odd feeling. He isn’t vulnerable. Just look at him - his thighs alone are thicker than the axel rod of a space engine. She shrugs her shoulders, stretching out her arms and preparing herself for the onerous task of getting to her feet and starting to look for the river she can hear just beyond the rocks. 

Her eyes scoot back to him though, like he’s a fucking magnet or something, and she scoffs at herself. Vulnerable. As if. He’s just… different when he sleeps. That’s all it is. 

He looks better today. The sweating has stopped and he’s not talking in his sleep anymore, which she takes as a good sign. She’ll wake him up soon. They could both use a wash and she’s as thirsty as she was yesterday when she decided to drink the river water, but... Every time she closes her eyes, she sees that tentacle lunging for her throat. And every time this memory makes her breath catch, she has to remind herself that it didn’t happen. That despite being poisoned and beaten, Matt still managed to kill that thing before it could kill her. 

Rey gets to her feet and her gaze lingers on him once more. On the way he has pressed his face into his arm, like her brother used to when he fell asleep on the bus ride to school in the mornings. 

She’ll give him a little while longer. 

*

The sun has fully risen by the time Rey takes up the valiant task of approaching a sleeping Alpha. She decides to play it safe, and use the tried and tested method of waking up something much bigger and meaner than her - a stick. 

She pokes him gingerly in the ribs, leaning as far away from him as possible. She waited another two hours; if she waits any longer, she’ll expire right here in the rocks into a pile of dehydrated former person, like the mummies she’s read about from Egypt. 

At first, he doesn’t react at all when she pokes him. He goes on snoring softly, his eyelashes resting against his bruised cheeks and his lips slightly parted. She pokes him again, this time a little harder. 

He grunts like the beast he is and his eyes flutter open. 

Rey finds herself staring at him before she can think not to. There is something soft about his eyes as he slowly wakes up, though it’s probably just because she has never seen him without his trademark glare fixed in place. Their colour seems lighter today, almost hazel, but before she can ponder over this for any longer, he notices the stick and then his eyes snap to her. 

She’s quick this time when he goes to snatch it out of her hand. She backs away into the rocks, narrowly evading his grasp. 

“Did you just poke me with a stick?” His voice is all gravel, husky with disuse. 

She backs away a little more, as though to escape the sound of his morning voice. It just seems far too familiar for comfort, though she doesn’t understand why she’s fixating on it so much. 

Rey sniffs at him and ignores his question. “We need water and I didn’t want to leave you here sleeping.”

“So you thought using a stick was the best way to wake me up?”

“You’re unpredictable. I didn’t know how you would react to me hunched over you, trying to wake you up.” His irritated incredulity transforms into an angry glare, but she doesn’t give him the chance to explode at her. “After what we went through last night, I thought it was best to let you get some extra sleep. They poisoned you more than once, didn’t they?”

Matt’s jaw shifts and he peers around them as though expecting to find a Scylla lurking nearby. 

“They didn’t follow us if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“How do you know they didn’t?” He sits up, brushing off his pants and wincing at his various injuries. He sounds a lot more like himself - rude and brusque as usual.

Rey first lowers the stick, then tosses it into the bushes. “We’re not dead, are we?”

He makes a faint sound at that, but doesn’t say anything. 

“Well...” She pauses, uncertain about just about everything at the moment, but she decides to just leave it for right now. Her speeches don’t seem to work on him, anyway, so maybe she’ll just - well - go. And he can either go with her, or not. It’s his choice and she’s tired of trying to convince him. “I heard running water last night. I’m going to go look for it.”

The _yo_ _u can come with me or stay here_ is left unsaid, but heavily implied. 

He’s looking at her again, jaw shifting and eyes narrowed. She half-turns away from him, hesitating over the words and for some reason unknown to her, flushing a little.

“You’re going to need to clean those wounds. There’s more bandages in the kit.” She pauses again, dirt shifting under her boots before she adds, “If you want them.”

_Good god, this is awkward._

Things are not made easier by him just _staring_ at her either. She nods once, more to herself than to him, and then turns on her heel to walk down the pathway to the underbrush. It’s hot already, the bugs emitting high-pitched squeals that go right through her eardrums. The long stalks of the grass whisper against her flight suit, tickling the dirty skin of her hands as she passes by. 

Really, though, she’s listening for him. For their shared concession that they will at least go to the river together. 

A few moments later, she hears his heavy footsteps in the grass behind her and her shoulders relax just a little. 

*

It feels good to have her boots off. 

The water is cool and refreshing between her toes as she scrubs the dirt from her neck and arms as best she can. Her hair is up in a soaked bun, thankfully long enough to tie back in a loose knot. One of the only consolations so far is that this is the same river they have been following to get back to the hatch. 

Unfortunately, she has no idea how far down they are from where she broke off the trail last night, right before they were abducted. At this point, they might be better off swimming across, even though the current looks rougher at this part of the river. If they can put a river between themselves and Scylla, then that gives them at least one advantage against them. 

Besides the knives they stole. 

A loud splash alerts her that Matt is nearby. She looks up from her perch on a rock in time to see him plodding through the grass towards her. He’s undone his flight suit and has let the top section hang down around his waist. His white t-shirt is badly stained and soaked to his skin. His hair drips with water, hanging in a thick curtain over the side of his face. Little strands hang in his eyes, gleaming in the smoggy sunshine. 

Rey looks away quickly, her cheeks pinkening. She knew he was big, of course. He’s a walking mountain, for Christ’s sake, but still… The wet fabric of his shirt leaves little to the imagination. 

“How are you feeling?” She sounds (mostly) normal. If there is a slightly higher pitch to her tone, she ignores it. She’s not a complete prude. She’s seen a man’s naked chest before. She’s an adult, she can handle a little wet skin. 

Matt grunts at her like this is a normal response to a perfectly normal question. 

Rey somehow succeeds at not rolling her eyes and gets to her feet, wincing at her various aches and pains. She debated using another tension bandage on her shoulder but blanched when she realized they were starting to run low on those already. They would have to start conserving their medical supplies until they got back to the hatch. 

If she could not be tackled by anything for the next twenty-four hours - whether it's an alien with tentacles for a face or an angry Alpha - that would be great. 

Matt shakes his boots out onto the ground and when he turns back to her, he flinches away at her outstretched hand like she’s brandishing a knife at him instead of a few bandages. He looks from them to her, only relaxing incrementally. 

“For your - you know,” Rey says, gesturing towards her own face. 

He sniffs, glaring at her for good measure. God, does everything have to be a goddamned chore with him?

“The one on your scalp looks infected.”

“I didn’t know you were a fucking doctor all of a sudden.”

“I’m not,” Rey flashes at him, lowering her offering, “but I’m not a moron either. It’s getting red and swollen. If it gets infected, I don’t have the proper medical supplies to treat you down here. Take the bandages.”

His jaw shifts at the command in her voice and she has to close her eyes and hum a lullaby in her head to staunch her anger. 

“ _Please_.”

Matt doesn’t step closer to take them; instead he leans forward and snatches them out of her hand, as though to be anywhere in her closer proximity is incorrigible to him. Like _she’s_ the abhorrent. 

Dick. 

To her surprise, he doesn’t stomp back into the grass to tend to himself away from her. Instead, he drops his boots on the ground and sits down on one of the large stones by the water. It would go a lot easier if he let her apply them for him, but there isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell he would do that. That would be an affront to his precious Alpha ego. 

Rey turns back to the river, measuring the distance it would take to cross it. It doesn’t _seem_ that far to the other side, but she knows better than to trust her eyes. The river is easily a kilometer wide now that they’ve wandered so far downstream. She can’t see the cliff edge they jumped from either, though she thinks they could come across it again if they head back the other direction. 

To where the Scylla took them. 

Rey peers at Matt from the corner of her eye as inconspicuously as possible. 

He looks better after a wash. There are several small cuts and a few nasty bruises on his face but with the dirt and sweat rinsed away, he looks halfway human again. Well, as human as an Alpha looks anyway. She walked away with only the cut on her hand and the bandage is already taking care of that. 

Thank god for the medical supplies. They would be fucked without them. 

She notes the scratch she gave him. There is a fine scar on his face now, bisecting his right cheek from his eyebrow and down to his jaw. She doesn’t know if he is aware that she marked him and she isn’t about to let him know either. It would just cause another fight and they really need to focus on getting back to the hatch. BB8 has long finished booting on. She can only imagine how confused the droid is right now, wondering where the hell the humans have gone off to. 

“My skin is crawling.”

Rey jumps a little and glares at him when she realizes she kind of just drifted off there. He probably thinks she’s plotting her next murder scheme against him. 

“I got lost in thought.” She hates that she’s blushing, but at least he isn’t looking at her. 

“That must happen often.”

She frowns at him, brows wrinkled in confusion before he leans back on the rock, apparently done with bandaging himself up. His eyes meet hers, just as hateful in their regard of her as ever. 

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“You always have that constipated look on your face like someone rammed a fuselage up your ass. If that’s the look you get when you’re lost in thought, then that must happen all the time.”

Rage is hot, she decides right then. It rises up through her like mercury, virulent with scorn, exasperation and sheer frustration. Her cheeks are red now - she knows they are because she has seen herself in a mirror when she is angry and she can feel how hot they’ve gotten. 

He tilts his head at her as though considering a small species of insect he has never seen before, eyes glittering with malice and a dash of expectancy. 

As soon as she sees this, she takes a step back from him and raises her chin. No. No, she won’t let him do this again. They have more important things to worry about right now other than airing out their hatred of one another. 

“I’m going that way.” She points down the embankment, her hand shaking with how much she just wants to _scream_ at him. His lips fold together, eyes boring into hers like he knows exactly how badly she wants to lose it on him. But he isn’t going to get his way. Not this time. “You can stay here or you can come with me. Your choice.”

She barely refrains from telling him he can shove his prickish antics up his ass while he’s at it. 

Matt says nothing to this. He isn’t precisely glaring at her anymore, either - she would think him wary if she didn’t know better. 

“Why not the other way?” 

She drops her hand and considers ignoring the question before she thinks better of it. 

“The Scylla are that way.”

“The _what_?”

Rey hesitates before glancing at the river. “That’s what I call them. They’re from Greek -”

“I know what Scylla are,” he snaps and she has to fight against that barometer again. She doesn’t understand how a fucking abhorrent would know about Greek mythology and she doesn’t really care either way. He’s apparently not done though and he gives her an incredulous look that _almost_ makes her explode. “Why bother naming them at all?”

“It’s better than calling them tentacle monsters - and besides,” she says, flaring up just a _little_ , “I am not arguing with you about this. Or anything else. If you want to come with me, I am going that way. Otherwise you can -” _fuck off, eat shit, take a long walk of a short peer,_ “stay here and wait for those things.”

Rey pulls on her boots, double-knotting them and then she picks up her flight jacket and makes her way down the river’s edge without waiting to see if he will follow. 

*

He does follow her and for a long time they walk in blissful silence. 

Even if it is fraught with tension and awkwardness. 

She thinks she knows what his surliness is about this time - besides the fact that he despises her, of course. She helped him last night. He was vulnerable and he had to rely on her. A Beta. He must be all torn up about it. Fucking princess. 

They stop mid-afternoon. Well, Matt stops and Rey pauses when she realizes he isn’t loping behind her like the big morose shadow he is. 

“Matt?” she calls, trying to keep her voice down. 

“ _What_?”

Rey starts and then looks up, heart pounding at how close he sounds when she can’t see him anywhere. Then, she realizes that he is up in a tree, directly above her. Damned spider monkey. 

He’s leaning across a thick branch, reaching for a cluster of something greenish and long. They kind of look like bananas, Rey thinks, but before she can muse over just what the hell he is doing, he grasps the thinner branch they hang from and gives it a mighty yank. 

“I would move your ass, if I were you,” he says to her without bothering to look in her direction. 

She skitters to the side just as a bunch of leaves rain down on her and then the - fruit? Plant? - falls to the jungle floor. Her stomach gives a painful squeeze at the sight of them. The berries are still in the medkit, uneaten. She’s beyond starving now. Carrying Matt through the jungle last night did not improve her situation either. 

Rey has taken the scanner out before Matt leaps down from the tree with surprising grace. He lands on his feet, kicking up dust and the leaves he had shaken loose. She glances at him before flipping the scanner open and aims it at the plants to get a reading. 

His hand appears out of nowhere and snatches the plant off the ground before she can finish. 

“Hey!” she exclaims angrily. “I wasn’t finished yet.”

“That’s nice,” he mutters, brushing past her to lean against another tree. He takes his knife out of his belt and flips it over in his grasp, bringing the bladed end against the green flesh of the plant. 

“You’re just going to eat it?” Rey knows she is risking reopening an old argument of theirs, but she can’t just let him eat it without at least trying to scan it. 

Matt pauses in his task, regarding the gaunt lines of her face and the dark circles under her eyes with a faint scowl. 

“You haven’t eaten anything since the hatch, have you?”

She crosses her arms in front of her, and although this appears as a gesture of defiance, it’s really to mask the loud sounds her stomach is making. Without taking his eyes off her, he rips into the plant, revealing juicy fruit within.

“That could be poisonous, you know.”

“Hasn’t killed me yet.” He bites into the fruit and the fact that he is maintaining eye contact with her during this becomes less annoying and more unnerving. 

“You’ve already had some?”

Instead of answering her, he bites into the fruit again, jaw working and lips wet with its juice. This feels like a power move to her, which shouldn’t be surprising. She looks from him to the unpeeled plant and back up again. 

“Do you want one?” 

He should disgust her right now, speaking through a mouth full of food, but he sounds just as condescending as always. 

“Is that obvious?” she replies just as nastily. The effect is slightly ruined when she has to wipe saliva from the corners of her mouth. 

He smirks at her - a first as far as she knows. Normally he is either glaring at her, scowling, or making an ugly face of rage. The smirk adds to her sense of strangeness with him; his lips have turned red and his cheeks rosy. He still has not pulled on his flight jacket. It hangs around his hips; coupled with the several days worth of stubble on his jaw and the long scar she gave him across his face, he looks positively roguish. 

Er - gross. He is _gross_ and that is why she feels weird. That and the extreme hunger pangs going through her. That’s _all_ it is. 

“You can have one.” He reaches for the bundle but stops short of tossing her one of the fruit. “If you can say ‘please’.”

God, she hates him so much. She wouldn’t make him say that if their roles were reversed. Well, probably. If she wasn’t so angry, she would tell him to fuck off, but…

Rey rolls her eyes at him and scowls. “ _Please_.”

“Was that so hard?” His smirk widens and she has to look away from it. Smug bastard. 

She doesn’t dignify that with a reply and almost drops the fruit when he throws it to her. His smirk fades away and he goes back to eating and ignoring her. Which is fine by her. It’s perfect, really. 

Rey walks ahead of him, taking one of her knives out and peeling the fruit far less smoothly than he did. It’s not like they had an abundance of fruit back home on Earth. Everything was in cans so the selection was pretty limited. 

Just to fulfill her own curiosity and perhaps some of her pettiness as well, she scans the fruit. Sugar, amino acids and a surprisingly high level of protein and other nutrients. She eyes the fruit skeptically before taking a bite. 

It’s _sweet_ and juicy and the moment it hits her tongue, she loses any shreds of self-control. She devours the entire fruit in one go, eating every little scrap left on the skin. Her stomach gurgles in satisfaction and she hums with relief. 

Food has never tasted as good as when you are practically starving to death. 

*

The river is just as wide as it was several kilometers back and the sun is setting. 

Rey sighs with aggravation and turns back to the jungle to find a tall tree to climb. There is no way she is sleeping on the ground. Not with the Scylla out there somewhere and not with the mysterious Laughers around either. 

“Where are you going?”

“To sleep,” she replies over her shoulder like this should be obvious. She reaches the tree and looks up at the branches, wondering how in the world she will ever get any rest tonight. She keeps thinking about that laughter, about the tentacles going for her throat…

And how she has three knives and an unreliable Alpha to depend on for survival. Those aren’t great odds. 

“You keep looking across the river. What are you looking for?”

Rey glances back at Matt with an exasperated sigh. “I think we should sleep in shifts. Just in case those things come around again.”

“That didn’t answer my question.”

“Doesn’t feel too good, does it?” she says before she can think not to. 

He glowers at her from the river’s edge, the setting sun casting him in pinkish light. She huffs a breath and looks back at the tree, trying to will the energy into her body that she needs to climb it. 

“I’ll take the first shift. You might want to consider sleeping in a tree -”

“You might want to consider fucking off,” he growls at her before stalking over to a tree neighbouring her own. 

Her mouth snaps shut and she shakes her head before pulling herself up the tree. 

Dick. 

*

The night is quiet and still. 

Rey doesn’t hear the laughers again, or anything else skulking in the jungle. At one point, she thinks Matt might be snoring, but then he shifts in the tree and she knows he is awake. 

Neither of them gets much sleep and when they descend from the trees in the morning, they wordlessly continue up the river. 

*

The river is finally beginning to narrow. 

Once they cross it, they’ll have to make their way back in the opposite direction, but at least they’ll have a river between them and Scylla. Assuming there aren’t more of them on the other side. 

At midday, they stop to eat again. Rey has decided that she loves the fruit from the trees. Those greenish banana-looking things. They’re packed full of nutrients and she already feels much better than yesterday. She picks her own from a tree, vowing to herself to never rely on Matt for anything. Not if he’s going to be a huge dickhead about it and make her say “please” every time like the power-tripping Alpha asshole he is. 

All told, they have exchanged a handful of words since they got up this morning. She muttered to him that she was going to the bathroom at one point and he stayed by the river, presumably drinking some of it. She has to say that she never wanted to find herself using leaves as toilet paper. At least she hasn’t broken out in a rash or anything. 

That would be fucking terrible. 

Rey reaches into the water, using it to rinse sweat from her face. She is about to throw the fruit peel into the grass when Matt steps to her side, towering over her as usual. 

“You drank it.”

“What?” 

Rey turns back to him before she can think not to, though she is careful to keep her gaze fixed on his face. His shirt is wet again and clinging to his skin and it takes her a moment to understand what he is asking about. 

“The water - you drank it.”

And then, she remembers. 

Her cheeks turn pink for an entirely different reason and she tosses her peel away before she can catch the expression on his face. 

“I couldn’t find anything dry enough to make a fire with. We should start boiling anything we consume here.”

She is getting really good at not answering him directly. 

Matt observes this as well and snorts. “After your bullshit about not consuming _poison_ as you put it, you drank it anyways.”

“Is that what we really need to be focusing on right now?” she snaps at him, giving up pretenses. 

He is as aggravated as always when she finally meets his gaze, his hands clenched into fists. The knife she gave him sits in his belt loop, the blade curved in silent threat. 

“What - the fact that if you just listened to me, we wouldn’t be in half the shitstorms we’ve gotten into since landing here, or the fact that you’re a stubborn bitch?” She makes an angry sound, something between a growl and a shriek, but he’s already speaking over her. “Yep, that’s just about what I thought.”

And quite suddenly, Rey has had _enough_. 

She shoots to her feet, kicking up water and stomping over dirt and stones in her bare feet. She nearly slips, her hair falling loose to her shoulders with her quick movements as she balls her hands into fists. 

“What I am _trying_ to do is survive and so far, you’ve hampered those efforts brilliantly! And before you go on about your misunderstood Alpha bullshit, know that I don’t care! I don’t give a shit what you think about me and my kind or anything else! I am just trying to live through this _shitstorm_ \- that you helped create whether you want to admit it or not - but every time I make any headway, you’re there to fuck it all up again!” 

Oh, this feels good. She probably should stop shouting and she should definitely heed the darkening look on Matt’s face, but she’s beyond that point now. 

“I heard you shouting when they took you last night.” She nods at the blank look on his face like he just agreed with her out loud. “You must have been following my trail pretty closely because there is no way I would have heard you otherwise.” 

His blank look transforms into an enraged glower, but she doesn’t care. Doesn’t. Fucking. Care. She’s _done_ and the sooner he knows that, the better. 

“Would you lower your damned voice? Fucking nutjob,” he growls at her, but she doesn’t listen to him. She’s done being cowed by this self-righteous motherfucker. 

_Done_. 

“That - that right there is the problem _Matt_.”

“What?” He looks incredulous, like she has started speaking Chinese to him and expected him to understand her perfectly. 

She shakes her head furiously and raises a finger to point at his chest. 

“When I figured out what happened - that you had been taken - I went after you. Because guess what, _Matt_ or whatever the fuck your name is, I could have left you! I could have carried on back to the hatch but I _didn’t_ ! I went looking for you and then what happened? I get knocked over the head and almost eaten by a creature with fucking tentacles for a face. So as much as you think I’ve been fucking up your life, you’ve been doing that to me since you tried to steal my ship. And before you go rubbing it in my face - _again_ \- I know you’ve saved my ass a few times, but I’ve saved yours too.”

“What do you want - a fucking metal?” he snarls and it won’t be until later that night that she’ll reflect on this moment and realize that he wasn’t yelling at her even though he had no qualms about doing it before. 

“I don’t want a goddamned thing from you,” she grits back at him. He turns away from her with a sarcastic laugh, but spins right back to her when she takes a few angry steps towards him, “ _except_ for you to face the fact that we are stuck here - together. And that the only way we’re going to have a shot at all of surviving is if you get off your high horse and _help me_!”

Her chest is heaving and she feels like there are twin flames heating up her cheeks. She knows she must look hysterical right now, but on the inside, she’s never felt more vindicated. Matt still scares her, but mostly in the way that his temper is unpredictable and she doesn’t like it when he invades her personal space. She’s less worried about him trying to hurt or kill her and far more worried about what will happen if they split up again. 

But it’s not enough to know that they won’t kill each other. 

It’s not enough to know that they’ve kind of, sort of, saved each other’s lives a few times because they just happened to be there to do so. And it’s certainly not enough for him to walk around thinking she should just listen to whatever he says like she doesn’t have a brain of her own. 

“My high horse?” he says in a dangerously low tone. 

Rey scowls at him but it’s his turn to advance on her. She doesn’t back away despite the strong instinct to do so. She tilts her chin up to glare at him, refusing to give him so much as an inch. 

“Do you have any fucking idea how much of a hypocrite you are?” He curls his lip at her in disgust, his eyes dark with his anger.

They’re going to spiral again. She can feel it in her chest, all that tangled anger and accusation. And it’s staring right back at her from his eyes. How is it that he can make her feel even remotely guilty after what his people did to Earth? After what they did to her family? To _everyone_?

 _Not helpful,_ she tells herself in the seconds she has to form a response. _None of this will help me get back to the hatch. None of this anger and resentment will get me any closer to living through this._

“You can hate me all you want.” Her voice sounds strange. Choked up on bitterness and fury, but she perseveres because that is the only way she can get through this. The only way. “But once the river is narrow enough, I am swimming across it. With or without you. We have a better chance if we stick together and we have next to little chance if we split up. That’s just the facts. Once we get back to hatch and _if_ the droid is still in one piece, you can build your shelter on the other side of the goddamned planet for all I care, but until we get back, we have to rely on each other.”

He glares down at her, but for a wonder, he doesn’t say a word. 

Rey chews on her cheek before nodding towards the water lapping near their feet. 

“I drank the water because I had to. I ate the fruit because I had to. The same as you.” She is speaking far more quietly now, like his silence is something fragile, apt to burst apart at the slightest movement. The worst of her anger has calmed down for the time being, and it is with a rare brand of willful dignity that she says, “I don’t know how they do things wherever you’re from, but I am not going to do something just because you tell me to. If I want to scan every damned twig and leaf we encounter, I will. If I want to approach situations with caution and some damned common sense, I _will._ You don’t have to like me, or the things I do, but you’re going to stay out of my way and _stop_ calling me a crazy bitch. I’m not your fucking doormat that you can get to shit on when things don’t go your way.”

A muscle twitches in his cheek and she looks at it before meeting his eyes again. The wind picks up at that moment, tossing the dark locks of his hair with it. His scent reaches her and for once it isn’t that acrid burnt pie smell she has become accustomed to. She wouldn’t call it sweet, as it was when she first smelled it on the Falcon, but it’s less pungent now. 

When he doesn’t say a word, she blows out a short exhale and turns on her heel for her boots. 

He’s going to leave. Or he’ll stay here and she will leave because this was never going to work. She knew that the moment they crashed here. It was stupid of her to even try, but she did because she thought it was the best and really, the _only_ plan she had. 

“What are your concessions?”

Rey has one boot in her hand and she goes still, gazing out at the water without really seeing it. Concessions - how does he even know what that word means? When she turns back to him, it is in slow, jerky movements, like the very act of facing him again is unnatural. Inconsiderable. _Impossible_. 

At least, it should be, but he has just said something that doesn’t compute with the image she has of him and it takes her far longer than it should to answer. 

“What do you mean?”

He looks just as uncertain as she feels when he angles himself in her direction, his lips folding together and his hands slowly unclenching. 

“If we’re going to…” It looks physically painful for him to say it, but she waits, knowing that everything rests on this moment. “...if we’re going to do this, then this isn’t going to be a one-sided arrangement. You don’t get to dictate all the terms and expect me to follow along with it. This goes both ways.”

That is a reasonable and well-thought out request for someone she regards as animalistic and savage. She almost gets angry all over again before recognizing that in his own Alpha way, he is trying to meet her somewhere in the middle. However small and delicate that middle ground may be. 

“That depends on your terms,” Rey replies with a stiff shrug of her shoulders. 

He joins her by the river and though he doesn’t get in her personal space again, she straightens up anyway. He notices her wariness and stops then, eyes narrowing before his expression changes to a guarded look she cannot place. 

“Whatever plans you come up with, you have to run them by me first.” She goes to interrupt him and he makes an aggravated sound in his throat. “We have to _agree_ on them. Alright? Because despite what you might think, you’re not the only one who wants to survive here. Both our lives are on the line, so if your plans involve me in any way, you tell me first.”

Rey doesn’t like that at all but she knows if she doesn’t agree, this is already over. 

“Fine.”

He doesn’t look particularly pleased by her response but that’s the best he’s going to get from her. His jaw shifts some more and then he gestures to her belt. 

“I want one of those knives.”

“No. Absolutely not.”

“Well I guess you’re on your own then. Good luck swimming across the river when you can’t swim for shit anyway.”

“I can swim,” she shoots back. “I trained in pools back home. I can swim.”

He snorts at her. But he doesn’t leave right away either. 

She shifts on the spot, trying to find a logical reason to withhold the knife from him. She comes up short and then huffs at him. 

“You already have a knife.”

“Exactly. One knife. Singular.” He says this in a way that makes her want to smack him all over again. “It’s that, or I get to carry the medkit.”

She scoffs at him but he is as unmovable as a mountain. “But you don’t even know how to use half the stuff in it.”

“I’m not letting you carry three out of the four weapons we have _and_ our only medical supplies.”

“Why? How does that make any sense?”

“In case you try to fuck me over.” He nods when she pulls her head back like he is the one who slapped her. “Oh don’t act surprised. Just because we’re agreeing to this _partnership_ doesn’t mean we trust one another. I want one of the knives or the medkit. Your choice.”

Now, he’s just throwing his words right back at her. 

She grinds her teeth before reaching for her belt. His eyes glitter with triumph and she almost reconsiders, just on principle - but if this is what it takes, then fine. It’s not like she can hold three knives at once in a fight anyways. She hands him the knife and he takes it from her, placing it in his belt without taking his eyes off of her. 

“Anything else?” She says with a sarcastic smile. 

“Yes,” he says simply and she rolls her eyes. “I want an addendum.”

Rey blinks at him and then narrows her eyes in suspicion. He sure knows a lot of fancy words for an Alpha. 

He smirks faintly like he knows exactly what she is thinking. 

“To what?” 

“To your whole women’s lib speech.”

“No. I am not -”

“Would you shut up for a fucking second?” They’re right back to glaring at each other then, but before she can tell him off he runs an aggravated hand through his hair and shakes his head the river like it had the audacity of putting him in this situation with her. “You can do whatever the fuck you want, okay? But if we’re in danger and I tell you to do something, just do it. I have better instincts than you.”

“Because of what you are?” Rey says sarcastically. 

He leans towards her then and while this doesn’t put him in her immediate proximity she almost backs away regardless. His eyes change for an instant, flickering wild green. 

Her breath catches in her throat. 

“Yes,” he murmurs, low and sure, “because of what I am.”

They stay like that for a moment, locked together in mutual dislike. There is a nervous quiver in her stomach that she has no control over, not with him looking at her the way he is now, and when he backs away, she’s relieved. 

The air is cautious around them, tentative with the prospect of the journey before them and perilous fragility. There is a bridge between them now. It’s shoddy, cables splintering and walkway swaying precariously in the wind, but it’s there. 

Rey finishes putting her boots on and Matt goes on standing there, eyeing the other side of the river in guarded speculation. 

“Let’s get going,” she says quietly. 

He gazes down at her like he isn't really sure this is the best plan he could come up with. She agrees with that look because she feels it too. That this bridge might fall out from under them at any moment. 

But there is no other way. Just forward. 

“Alright,” Matt replies just as quietly. 

They set off down the embankment and though they are still tense with one another, the silence between them has eased in its onslaught, as frail as the invisible bridge they have built together.


	9. The Storm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What do you see?” she whispers despite herself. 
> 
> She thinks he won’t answer, but he surprises her. 
> 
> “It was in the trees.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You didn't think this was going to be easy, did you? :D
> 
> Warning for discussions of sexual assault. It's a theoretical conversation, no threats being made or anything like that, but if you find that triggering, I just want to give a heads up. <3

This planet does not have a name. 

Creatures who have lived here for thousands of years, who roam the jungles of the equator, the wetlands of the north and the arctic tundra of the south - they do not concern themselves with the naming of things. The planet simply exists through the same astronomical anomaly that created Earth. The gods they worship, with titles unpronounceable in any human language, do not care about names either. The world simply is, just like the scylla, the fenrirs, and the plants and the animals they hunt to survive. 

But that does not mean this world isn’t precious and beautiful. 

The rivers are run through with nutrient-rich silt and ancient ore deposits, lending the water its sweet taste and clear colour. The jungle is life in purity. Thriving, heady and rapturous life, quaking from the mud to the tops of the trees. Predators stalk, creatures scavenge and the flora and fauna winds its way through mottled green to the mists and sun beyond. 

There is one river that snakes through the sloping mountains of the east. It is not a particularly large river and nor is it noteworthy in any way. 

That is, until now. 

Until little over a week ago, this part of the jungle existed in perfect harmony. Life and death, chaos and peace - everything operated according to the laws of nature. But then, a dark object fell out of the sky and crashed into one of the mountains. Ever since that day, the jungle has changed. 

New sounds fill all that green space and new creatures pick their way through the embankment of this otherwise small, insignificant river. The predators of the jungle take note of them. The Scylla spread the word to the nomadic tribes of the east that there are things here that should not be. The fenrirs scent the air and shriek out to one another, warning each other off. 

And for the other things that live here… they take note, they watch and wait. They titter and cackle and howl at the moons in jeering spectatorship. They do not care about hunting or gods or the naming of things. But they are interested in these two new creatures. They smell different. Soft and sweet. Especially the big one. These fragile creatures with their strange pale hides and their aggressive arguing are weak and fearful things. 

They will make excellent prey. 

*

The river is tranquil today, the current gentle in comparison with only yesterday. Life continues its heady symphony all around this twisting and winding river. Wild flowers bloom along the muddy shore, dappling the grass in pinks, yellows and blues. The day would be truly beautiful to behold - were it not for the strident sounds of bickering interrupting the reverie. 

“I thought you had a plan.”

“I  _ do _ have a plan.”

“Right - swimming across a river and then what? Building a fire and singing a couple of songs until those fucking things kidnap us again?”

“Your sarcasm has been duly noted.”

“And you still haven’t answered my question - or have you forgotten our agreement already?”

“How can I bloody well forget when you remind me at least five times on the hour?”

“Your bitchiness has been duly noted. Now, in case you haven’t noticed, that’s sheer rockface on the other side.”

“What. Is. Your.  _ Point _ ?”

“We can’t climb that. Well, I probably could if I had the right gear, but you sure as shit can’t. Unless you’re planning on walking several kilometers in the other direction, we won’t be getting to the hatch anytime soon.”

Rey doesn’t tell Matt that this is  _ exactly  _ what they’ll be doing. She is trying to wait until they’ve safely crossed the river before opening that can of worms but like every other effort she has made since landing on this rock of jungle and mists, he is hampering those efforts beautifully. 

“Are you on some kind schedule? We’ll get back to the hatch as soon as we can, but  _ safely _ . There’s more than just the scylla to worry about. There might be more fenrirs too.”

Silence greets her words and for one blessed moment she thinks that might be the end of it. They’re making good progress at least, trekking up several kilometers of the embankment. She’s impatient to be back at the hatch too, but Matt has taken it upon himself to ask when they are crossing at least six times already today. They’ll get there when they get there. 

Matt makes a sound of amusement and she’s so thrown by it that she almost trips over an errant stone in their path. When she shoots him a glare, his smirk only widens. 

“Do you have a mythology fetish? You do, don’t you? Well, we don’t need to name every goddamned thing we come across.”

Rey blushes and starts walking faster, as though she has any hope of getting away from him. She’s not a total prude, but listening to him talk about fetishes in any context is enough to make her wildly embarrassed. They’re supposed to be sticking together - that was the agreement - but it’s been rather difficult. He is driving her fucking mental and won’t stop pestering her with a million needling questions and pointless objections to just about any course of action she wants to take - whether it’s the fact he doesn’t think they should walk so close to the river, that she needs to stop wasting time cataloguing plants and animals with her scanner, or that she generally irritates him with her very existence. 

Their tentative partnership has not warmed them up to each other, to say the least. 

“ _ We _ didn’t name anything - I did,” she says, huffing when he easily matches her pace and walks alongside her. He seems to loathe when she walks in front of him, which is probably just another misogynistic Alpha thing. “And it’s not a  _ fetish,  _ I just happen to appreciate literature and ancient mythology.” 

She almost says something along the lines of how she can’t be faulted for being a well-educated adult with a modicum of intelligence, but she doesn’t. Only because they haven’t fallen into a screaming match since agreeing to temporarily partner up, which is a damned miracle in and of itself. 

Also, though, she has noticed that Matt isn’t as stupid as she first thought. Well, he  _ is  _ stupid, but he seems to have knowledge about things she would never have previously assumed. For all his snide comments about her apparent  _ fetish  _ for mythology, he has known almost every single name she has chosen. 

She would point that out to him if he would shut up for five goddamned minutes. 

“What did you name those frog-things again?”

“For crying out loud.”

“And the fucking bushes we walked past an hour ago - why name those Medusa? Why not just call them bushes and be fucking done with it?”

“Are you finished yet? You’re giving me a migraine.”

“How sad for you.”

“I’m a scientist,  _ Matt _ ,” she says, emphasizing his very much not-real name. “I document things as I see them for later analysis. If something is poisonous or harmful, we would be better off having a name for it then just  _ bushes _ . Which falls into the aforementioned clause of our agreement where you leave me the hell alone and let me do what I need to do.”

He nearly walks into her for the umpteenth time in the last hour and she makes an irritated sound and stumbles away from him in a big hurry. How does he run so hot and not keel over in a puddle of sweat? She doesn’t understand it, nor does she find it fair that she’s dying over here from the heat and he keeps elbowing his way next to her on the path. 

“How is naming a bush essential to anything?” His flight jacket is slung over his shoulder. Within are several bundles of the fruit they’ve been eating and everytime he casually walks into her, the bundle swings and hits her in the arm. 

He has to be doing it on purpose. 

“Do you ever shut up? And you say I talk too much.”

Matt ignores this completely, like the jag he is. “Why bother naming any of it? If the shelter has the walls you say it does, we shouldn’t see any of these things again. Waste. Of. Time.”

_ If I even let you stay in the shelter,  _ she thinks but does not say. 

“And  _ again _ , I reiterate, are you in some kind of hurry? Is there a secret Alpha rendezvous I didn’t get the invitation to because in case  _ you _ haven’t noticed, we’re not exactly on any kind of clock here.”

Rey glances down at her broken watch with a frown after she says this. She doesn’t know why she’s still wearing it. Maybe out of habit, or just to fulfill some need born out of homesickness. When she looks up, she barely catches the sudden dark look on his face. 

What, so he can dish it out but he can’t take it? She is seriously considering pushing him in the river at this point. 

“Right,” he says tightly. “So we should just take our time moseying through a dangerous jungle with things out here actively trying to kill us, just to fulfill your fetish -”

“- it’s  _ not  _ a fetish -”

“ - so you can name every goddamned blade of grass we come across? That’s a great idea, genius. Where did you get your degree again - the Bullshit Academy for the Insane?” 

She shoots him a withering scowl as she steps over a large tree root. Her shirt is soaked to her skin and her hair is piled on her head in a disgusting lump. The humidity is sweltering today, the kind of heat that makes her lungs feel like they’ve been coated with slime. Matt, in comparison, is sweating very little. He seems to have adapted to their surroundings far quicker than she has. 

“Finished yet?”

“If you’re lucky.”

Impossible. He is  _ impossible _ . 

Rey stops by the river’s edge and Matt does the same a second later. 

“Don’t tell me you need another break. Didn’t you do some kind of bullshit training for this?”

Oh yes, and she’s going to hold his head under too. Just long enough to scare the shit out of him. 

“Here,” she snaps at him, gesturing across the river. This is the narrowest spot they’ve come to yet. She thinks they can get across it relatively easy, especially with the current as calm as it is now. 

And despite Matt’s annoying antics, he’s right about one thing. They shouldn’t linger on this side of the river any longer than they have to. 

His dark eyes are narrowed and assessing as he takes in the opposite shoreline. She wonders if he can see better than a normal human. She knows he can move quietly and  _ quickly  _ when he wants to, but she has no idea about any of his other abhorrent attributes. They don’t exactly talk much beyond arguing and every time she brings up so much as his real name, he shuts down completely. 

Without saying a word to her, he starts taking off his boots. 

“So, you’re good with this spot then?”

“No, I’m just taking off my shoes for the fuck of it.”

Rey grumbles under her breath and bends down to unlace her boots. Impossible is an understatement. 

*

She would be triumphant about her swimming efforts were it not for the unmistakable sound of mad laughter filling the jungle once more. They barely put their boots back on when it started; awful in its boisterousness and malcontent. It’s broad daylight and yet that shrill cackling echoes off the water and cliffs, amplified to hellish volumes. She had hoped that it was a one time thing, that now that they were safe on the other side of the river, they wouldn’t run into that terrible laughter again. 

She was apparently quite wrong. 

“Where do you think it’s coming from?” 

The words are uttered so quiet, they’re barely a puff of air from her lips. They are hiding behind a wildly overgrown bush, soaked to the bone from the river and panting for breath from having just hightailed it off the open embankment. Well, Rey is panting. She is in good shape but Matt makes her seem like a slug in comparison. 

She glances at him, waiting for his reply, only to note something strange. There are two high red points on his cheeks and faint tendrils of steam rising his body from the water. He runs hot but she didn’t know he ran  _ that  _ hot. She notes this with a troubled frown, but as soon as the laughter kicks up again, she promptly forgets this oddity. 

“Do I look like I have a pair of binoculars?” His words lack their usual bite, his eyes scanning every inch of jungle around them as though expecting something to jump out at them. 

“I thought…”

She trails off at the slow turn of his head and the challenging glare in his eyes. 

“You thought what?” he murmurs in a dangerously low tone. 

She can see his glands again. The collar of his t-shirt is low enough that their pinkened and rounded edges are clearly visible. She tries not to stare at them, swallowing around the lump of fear in her throat as the laughter reaches new heights of insanity, tainting the air around them with malice. 

“Well… don’t you people have superhuman senses, or something?” 

That sounded a lot less offensive in her head, but she’s not about to feel guilty for hurting his feelings. Not after the shit he’s put her through. 

A muscle twitches under his eye. 

“I have an idea. I am going to make a shit ton of noise to attract them. You can stay here and debate with them whether  _ my people  _ have superhuman senses while I haul ass back to the hatch. How does that sound?”

They’re far too close for comfort if she can feel his breath against her cheek. It’s not like she has anywhere else to go, though. This was the closest bush to the river and she’s not going to risk exposure by moving to a different one. 

Besides, he would love that, wouldn’t he? Cowing the scared little Beta so badly, she risks getting eaten by whatever the fuck is out there right now. Well, fuck him. 

“Do you always have to be so defensive?” She shifts a little to the left, trying to gain at least a few inches of room. He’s right  _ there _ , taking up her space and practically glowing with heat. He’s like a small version of the sun, sucking up all her energy and sanity. She huffs at his scowl and shifts away another inch. “It wasn't an insult, I am just trying to be practical.”

“Right. I suppose I should  _ thank  _ you for once again making baseless assumptions -”

“- it was just a  _ question _ . God you’re insufferable -”

“- after we agreed you would stop fucking  _ doing  _ that -”

“- like you haven’t done the same thing to me -”

“ - not like I can ignore you when just the sound of your fucking voice is enough to make my brain bleed -”

“ - drama queen, which just proves my earlier point that you -”

“ _ Shut up _ .”

For once Rey listens only because the laughter has stopped and the jungle has gone silent. She holds as still as possible, even muscle in her body primed to take off. She hasn’t noticed until now that as soon as that laughter started, everything else in the jungle stopped making noise. She read about birds back on Earth. How when a hawk or falcon is nearby, the smaller birds will stop singing. Like they all know there is an interloper in their midst, ready to snatch them in its talons and tear them to shreds. 

When she wipes the sweat off her upper lip, Matt shoots her a hide melting glare like she just stood up and called out their position to everyone. She returns his glare in kind, but soon they forget about their mutual hatred when the silence stretches on for far too long. 

They stay behind the bush for a long time. 

*

“I should have known this was your plan.”

“You’re the one who said we don’t have any climbing gear. I know we have to backtrack a little -”

He growls something under his breath that she feigns to ignore. 

“- but this is the best we can do under the circumstances. If you don’t like it, you’re welcome to try climbing up the mountain. Just know that I’ll be down here to watch you break every bone in your body when you fall.”

It’s a happy mental image and she must smile a little because he pauses with a bundle of sticks in his arms to glower at her. 

“I wouldn’t fall.”

She snorts and stoops to pick up more sticks. 

They’re running out of fruit, something she wishes they had more foresight about. The banana trees, as she calls them, don’t grow on this side of the river for whatever reason. Matt has decided to try and catch a fish (or whatever passes for fish on this planet) with the caveat that he let her scan it first. They’re building a small fire and though it is still light out, there is a sense of renewed urgency in her weary bones. That fire better be out by dusk. They can’t risk attracting anything to them, not after spending most of the morning hiding behind a bush from the Laughers. Her thighs are still sore from hunching down for so long. 

She carries on for a little while, gathering sticks and whatever small bits of kindling that may light. Everything is so wet here from the humidity that they’re going to have a hell of a time starting a fire. It is only when she drops her second bundle in the pile that she notices Matt has stopped moving. 

Rey pauses over the pile, her arms hanging at an awkward angle as she frowns at him. He’s kind of just… staring off at a tree, his gaze cloudy and a little dazed. His cheeks are redder than they were earlier. He reaches up to wipe sweat from his forehead, his hand trembling just enough that she can see it from where she is standing. 

“Matt?” She feels ridiculous using that name still, but he won’t tell her what his real name is. The gigantic twit. 

He doesn’t respond, doesn’t even look her way. She takes in his pallor with more alarm and wonders if he ate something that made him sick. 

“Hello - earth to Matt,” Rey says a little louder, waving her hand for good measure. 

His entire body locks up and he comes to from whatever strange fugue he entered, glaring at her far more aggressively than is surely warranted. 

“Are you alri -”

“Is this enough sticks for you or do you want to build a fucking bonfire?” he practically snarls at her, his eyes flashing darkly. 

She recoils from him before she can think not to. 

“Geesh, I was just making sure -”

He makes a low sound in his throat and spins his heel for the river, taking out one of the knives and slapping branches away from his face. 

Well fine. That’s the last time she tries to be helpful. 

*

She doesn’t want to sleep in the same tree as him. Even being several branches apart feels too close for her. He’s been irritable all day and as the sun sets and Rey considers the journey ahead of them, she tries very hard not to notice it. 

Or his smell, more accurately. 

It’s getting stronger and she shifts uncomfortably on her branch, trying to surreptitiously hide her nose against the collar of her flight jacket. Earlier, she thought maybe she was just downwind from him and that was why it was so strong, but even sitting above him on their shared tree has not afforded her any respite. 

It’s not a  _ bad  _ smell. His scent is in fact quite pleasant which is part of the problem. 

Officer Dameron once made everyone butter tarts with some baking supplies he dug out of god knows where. He even found a jar of icing for everyone to share. They had all sat in the officers’ lounge in a rare moment of comradery and gobbled up every crumb of those tarts and every speck of the icing like that was their mission. 

Matt smells a lot like those tarts right now. Like he is slathered in vanilla icing. Coupled with the fact that he failed to catch anything in the river and they are now trying to conserve what little fruit they have left, he smells…

Good. Really good. 

The juxtaposition is maddening because she still hates him. Very much so. But the fact that this gigantic Alpha smells like dessert is making her all kinds of angry and uncomfortable and just plain unnerved. 

Neither of them are asleep yet, of course. She thinks he might be carving something into the bark of the tree and considers telling him off for it, or to just say  _ something  _ to distract her from - well -  _ him _ and so when she speaks with little forethought, she is not at all surprised that he doesn’t answer her. 

“You should tell me your name. Your  _ real  _ name.”

Nothing. 

“I bet it’s something stupid and that’s why you’re not telling me.” 

Not that the name Matt is much better but she’s tired of calling him that. He stole that name like he tried to steal her ship and he didn’t even do that properly. Whoever had given him his intel on the real Matt must have left out the key detail of his last name. Though, she supposes she isn’t much better. She didn’t remember the real’s Matt’s surname either. 

He goes on carving or whatever he’s doing down there, pausing every now and then to scratch his neck. He’s been doing that a lot today too. She really hopes he isn’t getting sick. 

“Is it something like Hunter or Skyler. I can really see you having a douchy name like that.”

Underneath her, he goes still. She thinks he might tell her off now, but he doesn’t say a word.

“It is, isn’t it?” Rey whispers like she has stumbled on a juicy secret. 

“You’re a moron.”

That’s rather light compared to some of the names he has called her. 

“Alright then.” She leans against the tree, regarding the darkening sky with a tiny smirk. “Bert.”

“What?”

“Your name is Bert, isn’t it?”

He makes an incredulous sound and she cannot help but grin. His scent is still noticeable, but now she has something else to focus on. Namely, needling him until he gives up his goddamned name. 

“Or is it something emasculating? Maybe that’s why you have such anger issues. Hmmm.” 

She pretends to think it over and as she does, she notices that he isn’t carving anymore either. Maybe they both need a little distraction. She still can’t get the sound of the maniacal laughter out of her head and she doesn’t know if she will get any sleep tonight, but at least for now, she isn’t thinking about it. 

“Timmy.”

There’s a sharp exhale below her, followed by the  _ faintest  _ of snorts. 

“Not Timothy, or Tim. Timmy - yeah, I think that name really suits you.” She picks some dirt from her fingernails and leans her head back against the tree, awaiting his verdict. 

“Do you?” He sounds the epitome of bored but she isn’t buying it. 

_ Come on,  _ she silently wills at him.  _ Break - just tell me your real name. It’s a small thing and a stupid thing to withhold.  _

“Yep. I guess I’ll just have to call you that for now, since it’s your actual name anyway.”

Silence greets her words and she hums under her breath in muted victory.

*

Something taps her boot and when her eyes fly open she very nearly falls out of the tree. 

“ _ Shit _ !” She doesn’t bother keeping her voice down considering she just woke up and almost  _ fell out of a fucking tree _ . 

When she looks down at the next big branch, Matt is standing on it and holding a stick. A stick he apparently just poked her boot with. He looks exhausted and the redness of his cheeks hasn’t gone away either. But all her sympathy evaporates at the faint smirk on his face that she would like nothing more than to remove with her boot heel. 

“Sorry,” he offers, though his voice is a little too raspy for sarcasm. “You’re unpredictable and I didn’t know if you would try to beat me to death again if I got any closer.”

“I could have fallen,” Rey seethes at him in a quieter tone than the one she woke up with. “I didn’t poke you when you were suspended twenty feet in the air by a branch.”

He rolls his eyes and tosses the branch away. 

“Get your ass up. We have a lot of ground to cover today and we’re wasting daylight.”

“I will get up but because I was going to anyway,” she replies nastily. Then, with a sniff she adds, “ _ Timmy _ .”

His brows furrow in confusion before he shakes his head and mutters, “ridiculous” under his breath. 

She is almost positive his name is not Timmy, but if she calls him that enough, he might finally break and tell her what his real name is. Well, maybe. He is a stubborn bastard after all. But when he bends down to grip the next branch, exposing the back of his neck to her, she forgets all about his name. 

The gland on the nape of his neck is bright red. 

She scrambles into a sitting position before he can catch her peeking at it. His gland might be so red from him scratching it all night. She has no idea how glands work and if it’s normal for them to sometimes itch like that. She’s not about to ask him about it either. 

Rey decides to keep an eye on him. He’s clearly sick, though whatever he has is not catching to her. Well,  _ yet,  _ she supposes. 

She makes it down the tree and pulls up short when she finds Matt standing by the river bank. His back is tense and his hands clenched into fists. She steps around him, giving him and his strong scent a wide berth, only to happen upon something on the ground. 

Her blood turns to ice. 

Littering the ground are several networks of twigs and cloth. The bundles are tied together, clearly taken from the fire they never built last night. Whoever, or whatever, made this did so while they slept in the tree, just twenty feet away. Her stomach seems to fist itself and she has to remember how to breathe. The bundles seem to form symbols of some kind and it comes to her through her shock and fear that this is a message. 

For them. 

Together, they stare at the arrangement in complete silence before Rey reaches into the medkit for the scanner. She’s going to document this - even if it is nefarious, they might be able to figure out what it says with more data. 

Just as she goes to pull the scanner out, Matt grabs her wrist to stop her. His hand is like a cattle brand, scorching hot and sweat slicked. She goes to pull away with an angry mutter, but he hangs on tight. 

“ _ Matt _ ,” she growls, reverting back to his other name, “let go. I am recording this whether you like it or not… Matt?”

He isn’t looking at her at all though. 

His dark eyes are trained on the trees behind them, his head tilted as though in listening. She stops struggling against him when she hears it too. Muted and ominous, a slow rumble of what sounds unmistakably like thunder rolling across the land. They look up at the same time, but to Rey it just looks like the same sky that’s always there. Thick, grey mists. 

Matt makes a soft sound in his throat. Almost like a growl but not quite. 

She snaps her gaze to him, watching the way he swallows thickly with his face tilting towards the sky and his expression rapidly morphing from guarded caution to dawning panic. 

“What?” she demands, trying to tug her wrist out of his grasp. But he won’t let go and it takes her stepping in front of him for him to finally look at her. “What is it?”

“Run,” he says and at first she doesn’t understand the word at all, but then he is turning back towards the trees and yanking her along behind him. “ _ Fucking run _ !” he shouts at her over his shoulder. 

About ten seconds later, Rey sees why.

There is a crack of sound so loud that she screams. She’s never heard anything like it before; it’s almost like a sonic boom, only there something  _ organic  _ about it that she cannot credit nor understand. Like someone is ripping meat apart, only much louder and more concussing. 

And then, in a flash of brilliant light, a bolt of lightning forks down from the sky and strikes the place they were just standing. The strange and ominous twig arrangement that had been left for them overnight explodes in a shower of simmering wood. 

That’s all the convincing Rey needs. 

They run into the trees, up along the edge of the cliff side. She hears that deafening sound again, can feel it in her bones and organs, before another flash of light follows. Lightning strikes another spot nearby and then it begins to rain. Sheets of it fall upon them with no warning, drenching them instantly. Tree branches fall to the ground when lightning strikes them and Rey is now racing against her own heart, slipping in the mud that forms from the rain and trying to keep up with Matt’s hectic pace. 

He clings to her wrist, half dragging her when she almost falls. 

She yells his name, though he doesn’t hear her or he doesn’t care. Suddenly, he takes them on a sharp left turn, to where the cliff’s edge trails away from the river and deeper into the jungle. It’s gotten so dark out she can barely see where they are going. She has to entirely rely on Matt to guide them, which she doesn’t like, but she has no choice. 

They’re running from bloody  _ lightning _ . 

He bellows something back at her that she cannot remotely make out. She is just thinking that she cannot possibly run anymore when he takes them up a gentle slope of black rocks and stones. She’s lagging and she knows it, but still he doesn’t let go of her wrist. He pulls her up the rocks, growling when she almost falls again, but they’re both too panicked to argue about it. It is only when they reach the top that she sees what she couldn’t from down below. 

He’s taken them to a cave. 

They waste no time dashing inside. Matt yanks his knife from his belt and faces the cave’s entrance with his teeth bared. Rey, who stumbles inside the cave right after him, flinches away from him, only to realize that he is not baring his teeth at her. He looks like a rabid animal, his black hair rain whipped and his shirt sticking to his skin. He glares out at the rain, his entire body vibrating with aggressive energy. 

She’s confused and frightened, but she doesn’t question him. It feels dangerous to do so right now, when he looks like that. Belatedly, she takes her knife out too, joining his side to stare out at the rain. She expects to see Scylla out there, or maybe even Fenrirs, yet she sees nothing. There is only rain and even that has begun to dissipate. 

After a short while has passed, Rey lowers her knife and glances at him. His teeth aren’t bared anymore, but he’s tense and his eyes are wild and fixated on the trees. 

“What do you see?” she whispers despite herself. 

She thinks he won’t answer, but he surprises her. 

“It was in the trees.” 

Her blood runs cold all over and she steps away from the cave’s edge, her hand flying to her chest as though to contain the terrified rhythm of her heart. His words play on repeat in her head and she starts shaking, the way she does when she is cold. 

_ It was in the trees.  _

“I don’t see it.” She’s not accusatory. If anything the fact that she  _ can’t  _ see whatever it was is even more terrifying. She thought they were running from the storm but if something was following them and she can’t fucking  _ see  _ it…

His all gruff and rasp when he speaks and she wonders if that is the voice of his designation. Rippled with cunning and pure instinct. “I didn’t get a good look at it but…”

He still won’t take his eyes off the jungle and he hasn’t lowered his knife either. 

“Was it a Scylla or a Fenrir?” Her voice sounds small in comparison, tremoring with her terror. 

“No.” He shakes his head once, his jaw shifting from side to side and water running down his long, angular face. “No, it was something else.”

Rey’s stomach is leaden with dread and she feels like she can’t get enough air when she stares at all that green. 

*

“I think whatever you saw left that bundle for us to find.”

“No shit.”

“Do you remember any details of what it looked like?”

“For the twelfth goddamned time, all I saw was a black blur jumping from tree to tree.”

“Did it seem big, like a bear? Or small?”

“I didn’t exactly have time to stop to paint a fucking picture of it.”

“Obviously. I am just trying to -”

“It was decently sized, alright. Not as big as a bear, but big enough to do some damage. Are you done now?”

“I’m just trying to be prepared, okay? I didn’t see it at all and you did. If it creeps up on me when I am going to the bathroom or something, then I want to know what it looks like!”

“Rey, if anything creeps up on you on this planet, just assume it’s there to kill you.”

She frowns at him, though this has far more to do with the fact that he just said her name. It’s just… strange, she decides, to not hear him call her a bitch or any other name. 

They sit across from each other at the cave's entrance, watching the grey world outside for any movement. Some kind of bird swooped by earlier and scared the living shit out of them, but other than that, nothing has come for them out of the jungle. 

Matt shifts where he sits, reaching up to scratch at his throat once more. He really looks awful and it’s on the tip of her tongue to say so when he catches her staring. He drops his hand down to his leg and raises an eyebrow at her as though in challenge.

She bites her lip, debating whether it’s worth the energy before pushing out a shaky breath. 

“Are you getting sick?” Rey says this so quickly, it doesn’t even sound like an English sentence. His glare deepens but she pushes on regardless because it’s not just his life on the line. If he is ill, she needs to know. “I can give you medicine but you have to tell me what’s going on.”

“I don’t have to tell you anything.”

“This isn’t just about you, you know,” she tells him in her most pragmatic, calm voice she can muster. God, it’s like placating a six year old. “If you’ve caught something, both our lives are at risk and -”

“It’s not fucking contagious,” he snarls so ferociously that Rey leans away until her head smacks against the cave wall behind him. 

“Okay,” she says quietly. He looks away from her, sweat dripping down his sullen face before she goes to speak again. He closes his eyes and pulls in an angry breath but she promised herself when they began this  _ partnership  _ that she wouldn’t let him bully her like this. And she intends on keeping that promise. “You’re obviously unwell. If this is because of - well - what you are -”

He is already getting to his feet before she finishes her sentence and he hops out of the cave to the rocks below. She follows right after him, jumping down with far less nimbleness than he had. 

“- then you should tell me what’s going on! For my own safety, at least.”

Matt spins back to her so quickly she almost walks right into him. 

She sputters, backing up a step and he is right there, hovering over her with a look of such fury, there’s a nervous flutter in her stomach. His scent pervades the air around them, sweet and creamy and such an assault on her nose, she almost chokes on it. He doesn’t grab her as he did the last time she made him this angry, but she can feel his body heat anyway with how closely they are standing together. The rosy blooms on his cheeks are almost scarlet now, just like his glands. 

“What are you so worried about, hm?” His voice is almost unrecognizable, he is so angry; it quakes with an ancient command and despite being a Beta, even Rey perks up to it. He inches closer as she shifts away from him, pinning her with the teeming vitriol in his gaze. “Do you think the big,  _ bad _ abhorrent is going to rape you, just like in all those scary bedtime stories you Betas peddle?”

Then, she  _ does  _ back away from him. 

The thought had not consciously crossed her mind even if his condition has admittedly made her nervous. That much she can’t deny, though she was more worried about him becoming irrational (well, more so than he already is) or even violent. She hadn’t considered  _ that  _ aspect at all but now that he has said it out loud, she trembles in muted horror. 

He seems to take her silence as agreement and steps forward to make up for the space she created until he has backed her against a rock. He glowers down his long nose at her and she sees then that his eyes have gone green again. Mossy emeralds teeming with fury. 

“My people are not rapists,” he tells her in a voice filled with barely contained rage. “And neither am I. So if you’re trying to ask me if I am going to assault you in the middle of the night, the answer is no.”

“I wasn’t,” she manages to croak, but he points a finger in her face that is not quite steady. 

“Ask me  _ anything  _ about it again and you can fuck off and make your own way back to the hatch.”

The “it” in that sentence goes unclarified. Is he sick then with some kind of Alpha sickness or is it… those infamous ruts she’s heard so much about? It doesn’t matter either way because she knows he will never tell her. Not even under pain of death, she wagers. 

He glares at her for a moment longer before turning on his heel and storming off. 

Rey stares after him, rubbing at her chest and slow to relax. She hadn’t meant to imply  _ that _ at all… But he’s right. She doesn’t want to admit that, even to herself; that he is utterly right about her and her own bias. After so many years of living underground because of some war she is too young to remember, and enduring a parentless and brotherless existence, after listening to so many horror stories about Alphas and Omegas, she has never once given any thought to the validity of those tales. 

She still isn’t sure what is true and what isn’t. 

Only then, as she sags against the rock and watches Matt duck into the trees without a backward glance, she remembers something from their doomed flight out here. How when she had accused him of murdering the real Matt, he had gotten this horrified and rather demented look on his face - like he couldn’t comprehend  _ why  _ she would think that. Abhorrence aside, it was a reasonable thing to assume at the time, but she is realizing now that it was also amplified by her own prejudice. By her own fear. 

She’s heard so many stories about Alphas and Omegas being starved rapists, so many horror stories about what they’ve done to Betas, that the idea of him being like that too was just an assumption she made, even if unconsciously. Hell, that thought had gone through her head when he was trying to steal her ship. She doesn’t want to feel guilty about it because he is still an asshole and he shouldn’t be backing her into rocks with that intimidating look on his face when she says something he doesn’t like. 

Yet she cannot help but sympathize with him, just a little. 

If the person she was stuck on a dangerous planet with and who she had to depend on for survival thought she might rape them at the drop of a hat, then… 

She might not like that very much either. 

Rey is less angry than she should be when she pushes off the rock and follows after him. After a while, she catches up to him, though she thinks that he might have stopped at some point to wait for her. They don’t speak for the rest of the day and when dusk arrives and they find another cave to rest in for the night, she takes the first watch. She might even let him sleep for longer because he looks like he needs it. 

After all, he saved her life  _ again _ and… maybe she needs to give him a little more credit. Even if only a little. 


	10. High Ground

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An unwelcome sight greets Rey in the morning. 
> 
> There are new twig arrangements laid out at the base of the tree.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, and have another. 
> 
> Okay, but for seriously, this chapter is LONG. Sorry but not sorry :D
> 
> Also, the word "Matt" uses to insult Rey is not a made-up language. I don't want to give anything away yet because it's kind of a cool detail. Translations will come eventually.

They haven’t spoken in twenty-four hours. 

Rey did not think she would miss talking to him. Not when their conversations have mainly consisted of insults and bickering. She has never been an overly social creature. Never really understood the need to constantly be in others’ company. She always liked reading, studying and scientific analysis. She’s probably had better conversations with plant samples than an actual living person. 

But she’s still human. She still needs to talk to _someone_. 

She tries asking Matt about their food situation and all he does is grunt and go back to the river to fish. He hasn’t caught anything, which she doesn’t point out because she can feel him glaring at her sometimes even if she can’t quite look him in the eye. She attempts a conversation about what they will do once they get back to the hatch - if he plans on staying or building his own shelter elsewhere - but he walks away in the middle of her sentence and keeps up such a fast pace, she loses sight of him for most of the afternoon. 

Which isn’t at all reassuring since they still have no idea what left those twigs for them and chased them through the jungle yesterday. Their food supply is dwindling and they have not encountered a spot on the cliff that is climbable. 

She just wants things to be easy. Everything is a fight - especially with him. They don’t have to like each other, or as preposterous as this thought is to her, be _friends_ but if they could just talk like civilized adults then things would be so much easier. 

Why can’t he see that?

*

They’ve found a tree she has yet to document, but all it takes is one dirty look from him and she puts the scanner away. It’s fine. She’ll just wait until he is sleeping. 

“This one?” Rey asks, voice raspy from disuse. 

Matt’s version of a reply is to start climbing up the tree. She watches him go up, her shoulders sagging with the plight of everything between them. 

Is he just going to go on ignoring her forever? 

She caught up with him a little over a half-hour ago and noted with relief that he looks a lot better. His cheeks are no longer red and he almost looks _normal_. Well, as normal as an Alpha looks anyway. His scent has softened too from its urgent sweetness. 

That, more than anything, put her more at ease. 

Her stomach emits a strident growl and she flushes, rubbing it absently. She hasn’t had anything to eat today. When he took off, he brought the food with him and she was so over his bullshit by then, she couldn’t muster the energy to chase after him. 

Rey steps up to the tree and decides that tomorrow, she will try to fish. She has no idea how to go about it. The bunker did not offer much opportunity to fish, being that it was underground and all natural water sources on Earth are irradiated. But she’ll have to try. At this rate, if they rely on Matt’s less than stellar fishing skills, they’ll die of hunger within the next two weeks. 

As she reaches for the branch over her, something thumps to the ground at her feet. 

It’s a banana. 

She looks from it to where she can just make out Matt’s hulking form, high up in the tree. He doesn’t say anything to her, which is not at all surprising. She bends to pick it up and rather than climbing up the tree, she sits at the base to eat it. 

The sky is a deep shade of pink above them. She chews, her cheeks bunching with food, and watches for the stars as the mist parts, as though to permit nightfall beyond its hazy gates. 

*

He is by the river when she wakes up the next morning. 

She climbs down the tree and keeps a safe distance from him. He doesn't look like he’s fishing. His pants are rolled up his calves and he stands in the water, though what he is looking for she has no idea. 

“We have to decide if we’re leaving the river today.”

Rey startles, not expecting him to address her. He’s still facing the water and he sounds just as raspy as she does. His hair looks cleaner than it did yesterday and she wonders if he bathed while she slept. 

“We won’t have any water if we do. Unless you think we’re close to where we jumped from.”

That night feels like it happened a lifetime ago. She thinks again of BB8 and can only hope that no creatures have attacked the droid while they were away. 

“We’ll follow the river then.” He nods, though she thinks this is more for himself than for her. 

That doesn’t really answer her question, though she thinks he might not remember exactly where they jumped from. She doesn’t either and that scares her. They could walk right past that point and not have any idea. 

He turns then and splashes back to shore.

Rey hovers by the tree awkwardly, her flight jacket tied around her waist as the day’s heat reaches scorching proportions. Maybe later she’ll bathe too, though it almost feels pointless when she starts sweating again almost immediately after. 

He’s putting on his boots when she decides she has had enough of the silence. She’s thought about this long and hard, since there was little else to preoccupy herself with, and when she edges closer to him, his body tenses and he goes still. 

He still won’t look at her, but maybe that’s easier. 

“I’m sorry.” 

It’s _agonizing_ , say those two words to him, but if it means he’ll stop ignoring her then she can live with that. And as strange as it is to her, she kind of means it. 

He slowly stands up from tying his boots and when he doesn’t stomp off or start yelling at her, she takes this as a good sign. She gestures to him in halting motions, her face going red because holy hell, this is bloody awkward. 

“I… understand. Why you’re upset.”

“You understand.” He says this blankly, like what she said doesn’t compute in his big dumb Alpha head. Though she is slowly starting to learn that this is just another prelude to his anger. He has many different kinds of anger, which is fitting considering what he is, but she wants to avoid all that if she can help it. 

So, with a deep breath, she amends, “I don’t mean that I understand _you._ Or what it’s like to be you, or whatever. I am just saying that if… if someone thought those things about me, without even knowing me and… well, I would be angry all the time too.”

His eyes narrow and she can practically hear sirens going off in her that blare _DANGER! DANGER!_

“Not that you’re angry _all_ the time.” Good god, this is torture. “I just mean I would be too. Angry I mean.” She closes her eyes and shakes her head before adding. “That’s the part I understand.”

“Yeah, I got that.”

He doesn’t look annoyed when she finally has the guts to meet his gaze. He doesn’t really look like anything she is used to seeing from him. His lips fold together and when a gentle breeze drifts by, she smells him again, though it’s much softer now. 

Finally, he looks away and she relaxes a little, only to tense up when he turns back to her. 

“If we find an inlet leading into the mountains, we should go that way.”

Rey flounders before responding. Does this mean he accepts her apology? Should she ask? She doesn’t. She can’t really explain to herself why. It’s just a feeling. 

“Okay.”

They leave a little while later and though they don’t speak much, the silence feels less laden than it ever has. 

*

“I don’t think I can eat that.”

“I am not fighting with you again. We have to eat and that fucking thing is pretty much useless anyway -”

“ - it’s called a scanner, Timmy. God, everything is _fucking_ this and _fucking_ that -”

“- told you to stop calling me that. And I’ve seen you walk into at least three trees this afternoon -”

“- exaggerating, _again_ ! It was like _one_ tree max and I was busy trying to -”

“- no, you’re hungry. Don’t lie to me, I can hear your stomach growling like a fucking marching band -”

“- see, you did it again! Besides, I don’t -”

“- just eat it! For someone who claims to be so goddamned smart, you really are an idiot sometimes -”

“- almost a compliment, coming from you -”

“- oh it isn’t, believe me. And who cares what that thing fucking says! Everything you scan is inconclusive so why bother -” 

“That’s not why I don’t want to eat it.”

Rey folds her arms against her chest and looks away from him. 

Matt is kneeling over a rock, his hands covered in purple blood and one of his knives lying in the grass. There’s a fish spread out before him, gutted and its head chopped off. She can hardly look at it without gagging. 

“Don’t tell me you’re a vegetarian.”

She scoffs and toes at a rock on the ground, her cheeks pink with her stubbornness. 

“Well, are you going to spit it out?”

She drops her shoulders and frowns at him. How can she tell him that she has a weak stomach? That blood and guts have always made her extremely queasy? There’s a reason she focused on plant biology. Aside from the little opportunities to study animals since ninety-eight percent of them perished after the nukes went off, she could never stand the thought of dissecting something, let alone _eating_ it. If she tells him all that, he’ll never let it go, just like he never lets _anything_ go. 

Then, she notices him doing it again, like he did yesterday when she apologized; fixing her with that quiet, assessing look that makes her feel like shucking her skin. She almost caves, but then he is already speaking in a tone that is unrecognizable in its evenness. In its calm. 

“You have to stop looking at it like it’s an animal. It’s food and we’re hungry. We eat or we die. It’s that simple.”

“But…”

“No.” He shakes his head at her, holding her gaze with that unnerving calm. 

Her mouth contorts around her weak arguments but in the end, she relents. He’s right. _Again_. She would hate it more if she wasn’t so hungry. 

“I’ll go start the fire.” 

“Fine.”

“Great.”

*

They come to an inlet the next afternoon. 

The current is rougher here. Rapids form over the scrags and rocks. Moss covers everything, likely due to the fact that it’s shadier here than out on the river. The trees are closer together, leaning every which way in an ancient struggle to reach the sun. 

“It’s pretty,” Rey offers when Matt notices she has stopped to take in their surroundings. 

He raises an eyebrow at her incredulously and mutters under his breath as he keeps walking. They make their way inland and she hopes against hope that this inlet will lead them back to the hatch. 

And that nothing attacks them in the meantime.

*

“Just because you made some half-assed apology the other day doesn’t mean you get to know every little thing about me.”

Rey sits across the fire from him, her mouth forming an offended ‘o’.

“Excuse me! That was not half-assed. I was being sincere.”

“I’ve heard four years old tell better lies than you do.” 

Matt raises his eyebrows when she sputters angrily. He’s propped on his elbow up against a rock behind him, his legs stretched out with an air of supreme arrogance. His shoulders are bunched up with the way he rests his weight and she quickly looks away from them to glare at him. 

The goddamned tree. 

“It’s just a name, Timmy. I don’t know why you’re getting so worked up.” She almost grins at his scowl. “It’s not like I asked for your life story.”

He grunts in a way that tells her exactly how _that_ conversation would go if she did. 

“Do you know what you’re going to do when we get back to the hatch?” Rey is genuinely curious, but mostly prepared for him to shut down again. 

Matt gets up and stretches and she looks away when his biceps flex within the tight confines of his t-shirt. Her cheeks feel hot even for some strange reason but the sensation quickly fades when he walks past her, kicking dirt to put out the fire and starting up the path again. 

“There’s a whole world to choose from, right?” he calls over his shoulder, waving his hand at the trees and sky. But somehow, he doesn’t sound boastful about this fact. 

She can feel his bitterness as the way down to her toes. 

*

Rey doesn’t know when it happens, but as she takes the third watch and listens to the nighttime symphony of the jungle, she finds herself thinking about what Matt might have left behind back home.

Did he live in a secret bunker with the other abhorrents? Did he have a partner on Earth? Children? _Friends_? She has heard of Alphas and Omegas taking mates - though she has no idea what _that_ entails - but she thinks if Matt had a mate, he probably wouldn’t have signed up to steal her ship. 

Wherever he was going, it wasn’t back to Earth. 

She is a scientist though and she has always been curious about just about everything, including people. Even if those people are rude and ornery most of the time, and pretty much hate her guts. 

And Matt, or Timmy, or whoever he is, well… she finds she has become curious about him too. 

*

She sips on the water from the stream and winces at the flavour. It’s not as sweet as the river water. Tastes faintly metallic actually, like the water from the bunker. 

Matt is downstream from her, knife out and dark eyes trained on the water. She hopes he never looks at her the way he is looking at those poor little fish. She knows it’s just because he’s hungry and he can’t _technically_ help it, but she is always reminded most of his designation when he is hunting. His eyes get darker for one and his face looks as though carved from stone. 

She looks away and works on cleaning her fingernails. She can’t stand it when they’re dirty. She’ll keep picking at them until they’re tender and raw. 

“Rey!”

Her heart flies into her throat and she’s on her feet so quickly she gets dizzy. Matt tips her an amused smirk and holds up his hand. Grasped within his bear paw is a large fish, wriggling in his grasp.

It’s a pointless struggle; his hands are huge and his grip crushing. She knows because she remembers how tightly he gripped her wrist when they were running for their lives in the jungle. His fingers are like vices. 

“Oh,” she says weakly. “That’s… great.”

He shakes his head like he knows exactly what she’s thinking. She is _trying_ to get used to him cleaning fish around her, but the thought of it still makes her nauseous. Still, though, that’s a much bigger fish than the ones he’s been catching. They might actually have a proper meal for once.

“Go start the fire,” he says, stalking up the stream towards her. The fish is limp in his hand now and she winces. 

“I was going to,” she says a little testily because she hates it when he does that, ordering her around like a bloody drill sergeant. 

“Unless you want to clean the fish this time -?”

“I’m _going_ ,."

She almost misses the curve of his smile and falters before heading into the trees for wood. Though it was at her expense, she still makes note of it; how his features lighten from the way they were darkened while he was hunting. 

It’s because she’s collecting data, she tells herself. He is just another specimen for her to study. 

*

Sometimes he gets in these moods. 

Well, he _is_ a mood. Dark, surly and perennially grumpy, a gigantic canker sore that regards the world in equal measures of hostility and haughty arrogance. _Sometimes_ he smirks, though this is always at her expense, and he rarely smiles, which might be for the best because the few times he has, she gets a peculiar, warm sensation in her chest that she absolutely blames on the anomaly of him _smiling_ and not due to anything else. They argue and though she tries to avoid touchy subjects, they occasionally get so mad with one another, they pout in their seething silences and bitter side-glares. But he doesn’t take off again and she is secretly grateful for that. 

As much as he pisses her off, it’s far safer to have an Alpha around than to be alone. 

They’ve been travelling together for a few weeks now and she keeps collecting her data on him, analysing, strategizing, but mostly just puzzled by her findings. The more she gets to know him (or about as well as he _lets_ her get to know him), the more she finds him a walking paradox. Unpredictable, volatile and just plain rude at times - it’s the former that she doesn’t care for. She doesn’t like variables. They don’t go well into the whole planning bit, which is something she has always been obsessive about. 

One of the other officers once called her a textbook Virgo and she had stared at him blankly for several minutes until he shook his head and walked away. She thinks she might have proven his point a little, just with that. 

Volatile, she can deal with. Rude, she can also handle because she just dishes it right back at him. Unpredictable though? It’s not ideal. It’s actually bloody frustrating. Because sometimes, Matt is an angry, pompous Alpha. 

And sometimes, he gets so quiet that she can’t help but ponder what he might be missing. 

She misses Earth and some of the people there, but only in a vague way from not really getting to know anyone that closely. Every time she thinks of home now, it is with a crushing sense of guilt; that she has failed them all and that she can only hope the other missions were successful. That if there were Alphas and Omegas on the other ships, they were vanquished in time to salvage their mission. 

But that isn’t the same as missing the people. It’s a sense of duty she clings to when she thinks of home and not really any personal attachments. The familiarity - the routine, the schedule and the safety of knowing she was in a bunker that wasn’t filled with alien creatures that wanted to eat and kill her - well, that is what she misses most. 

She thinks that might be sad, in its own way, though not as sad as losing real connections. She never had those. They died with her family a long time ago. 

Rey glances at Matt as they push on through the foliage, following their little stream up the mountain. They’ve been walking uphill steadily all morning, which she takes as a good sign, even if her thighs are burning and her lungs are coated in fire. 

He’s quiet today. The kind of quiet that makes her tentative in the hollow spaces between them not being filled by his typical spite and scorn. 

She shouldn’t feel sorry for him. 

He chose to be here, he must have known the risks of failure. She still has no idea what his original mission was, where he would have made her take them before Falcon 8 exploded, or if she would have even survived. He tried to _kidnap_ her for Christ’s sake, but for some inane reason that she can make no sense of, that has started to matter less with each passing day. 

Can she be faulted for feeling a little empathy for him? 

“Do you want to keep going?” It’s the first thing she has said in a long time and she has to cough over the dryness in her throat. 

He glances at her as though confused by the question and then looks away. 

“If you need to stop…?” 

He doesn’t even sound like the same Alpha she has been travelling with all this time and she wonders how deep his misery goes that he can’t even muster the energy to be sarcastic. 

“I don’t. Let’s keep going.”

That’s the extent of their conversation for many hours and rather than try to break the shoddy silence, she leaves him to his brooding. 

*

“You know, one of the officers once told me I am a textbook Virgo.”

Rey didn’t _mean_ to say that. It’s just been so bloody quiet between them for almost two days. She’s going insane and has no idea what to talk with him about that doesn’t involve picking a spot to sleep, signalling to one another that they have to use the bathroom, or stopping for food. She’s about ready to tear her damned hair out. 

Matt’s mouth is full of food, his hands dripping with grease from the fish. The fire is already going out. It had rained last night. No terrifying storm again, thankfully, but everything is soaked, including their clothes and shoes. He blinks at her and though that far away glaze in his eyes has not fully dissipated, she can almost see the exact second when some of his snarkiness returns. 

She’s almost _relieved_ which is probably a sign that she is losing her mind. 

"...alright."

“I had to look up what a Virgo was… I am not really into astrology.”

No answer, he just goes on staring at her with a faint wrinkle to his brows. 

“Astrology is -”

“I know what astrology is.” He only sounds faintly piqued so she keeps going, like the masochist she is. 

“Right, well… I suppose I fit some of those attributes. Analytical, down to earth, practical.” She can’t really remember the rest of it, only that she had been alarmed at the time to realize that the officer had been totally right. She hates when people do that - point out obvious characteristics about her when she has been blind to them the entire time. Like she’s as transparent as glass to everyone except herself. “Astrology is silly, of course. But it can be useful to learn little things about yourself.”

She’s waiting now. Waiting to see if he will tell her what his sign is, or if he’ll even participate in this non-sequitur of a conversation. It’s not even a _conversation_ at this point but she’s a little desperate. She of course read up on all the other signs just because her brain is too big for her head sometimes and she needs all the information she can find on any given subject that passes under her radar. 

She wonders what he is. Probably a fire sign. Like Aries or Sagittarius. He definitely fits a lot of those attributes. 

“Is this your backhanded way of asking me when my birthday is?”

_Maybe._

“No.” She rolls her eyes when she hears the anger in his voice. “I’m just bored. You’ve barely said a word in forty-eight hours and I am just trying to -”

“We don’t follow the ecliptic system. We’re lunar.”

Rey mouths the word lunar and wishes she didn’t look so damned surprised. She has never been very good at hiding her emotions though. 

He throws the fish carcass in the fire and catches her shocked expression. 

“Yes, _lunar_ ,” he says slowly, like she’s a moron. “As in, the _moon_.”

“I know what lunar means,” she snaps. “It was just unexpected.”

“Why, because we’re heathens for not following your bullshit astrological cycle?”

“Well, I wouldn’t call it bullshit. It’s based on the Earth’s rotation -”

“- again, I am _aware_ of that -”

“- I just didn’t realize that ab - _Alphas_ used a different system. It’s… interesting.”

Matt seems to know exactly what she was going to say instead of Alphas and his expression darkens. 

“All _abhorrents_ use it, but unlike _bagwanaw,_ ours is based on actual science and not the mystical alignment of Mars in the twelfth house, or whatever fucking nonsense you people have come up with.”

Rey is itching to record the word he just said into her scanner. She’s certain it was an insult of some kind - she has heard of abhorrents speaking a secret language but she never thought she would hear it. Turns out that rumour was true, at least. She also _might_ be keeping a secret log about him on the scanner. Just because she is bored and a scientist and she likes to fully understand things and how they work. Or him, in this case. She isn’t stupid enough to do this right in front of him, but she makes note of it for later. 

“Ooo-kay. I was just asking a question, you know. You act like I am trying to unearth the Holy Grail or something.”

“I know exactly what you’re doing.”

Rey blinks at him stupidly, her head pulled back and her eyebrows furrowed. 

Matt leans forward and the fire does strange things when reflected in his eyes. There is a shimmering sort of effect she has never noticed before and in the dim part of her mind not resigned to the fact that she is very much about to have a fight with him, _again_ , about something stupid and mundane no less, she makes note of this too for later. 

“You and I are not friends. We are _nothing_. You seemed to have forgotten this fact but I am more than happy to remind you.” He looks _furious_ and though her heart rate picks up at the terrible tremor to his voice that usually precludes him screaming at her, she can’t help but wonder if this really has nothing to do with her this time. If he is just _angry_ in general. 

That doesn’t make him any less intimidating though. 

“I know that perfectly well,” she replies with far more brevity than she feels. “I was only trying to break the silence. There is only so much of your morose brooding I can handle, thank you very much.”

Well, that might not have been brevity after all, but she’s not going to sit here and let him dump all over her again. She stands up before he can, kicking dirt on the fire and maybe, _accidentally_ kicking some at his legs as well. 

He growls at her, not even bothering to wipe his pants off. 

“You really are an uppity little twat, aren’t you?” He’s suddenly on his feet then, but she doesn’t want to do this right now. They still have half a day’s light left and though she regrets even _trying_ to have something of a conversation with him, she won’t apologize for it either. 

“That’s rich coming from you.” She starts up the path, but he’s around the fire and in her face in the time it takes for her to make it three steps. 

“ _Excuse me_?” 

Oh, he’s furious now, but she doesn’t care because she is furious too. 

“Oh you heard me perfectly well. Now get the hell out of my way.” 

She hates that her voice has gone deep with her emotions, that her face is red and her eyes have suspiciously begun to prickle. She doesn’t _care_ what he thinks of her, but she was hoping that after everything, they could come to some kind of accord. She was even considering an offer of letting him stay at the shelter - with certain caveats of course. 

God, she was fucking delusional thinking this could ever work.

“No, I don’t think I will. You have got to be ten shades of fucking crazy to think for one second that I am the entitled one here. You don’t get to know me. Just because we’re in this deplorable situation together doesn’t me I owe you fucking thing!”

“Oh, cry me a river! If I have to hear one more time how hard you have it, I will _puke_!” she shouts at him, refusing to give up any ground. 

He’s so close she has to crane her head back to look him in the eye, but she does it anyway because she is sick of being made to feel bad about every little thing when all she has tried to do is make this easy. 

“You have no idea what you’re talking about-”

“Why would I? You won’t talk to me other than to insult or yell at me. You are the most intolerable _asshole_ I have ever met. I can’t believe I am stuck in this situation with you!”

He makes a menacing sound in his throat and his eyes have gone completely black. His pupils have almost entirely swallowed up his irises and if she wasn’t so damned angry herself, she might have recognized the look on his face. 

Like she’s the fish. Like he is hunting _her_ now. 

“You don’t know shit,” he snarls at her, “but you go waltzing around like you know everything and that you’re entitled to every goddamned detail about someone -”

“ - I am _not_ -”

“- yes you fucking are and don’t try to deny it. I see the way you look at me, like I am some fucking lab experiment to you. Your people have treated us like animals for centuries and you want to stand there and act like I am the one persecuting you!”

“At least I’m _trying_! I know we’re different but at least I’m making a fucking _attempt_ at civility. A word, by the way, you know nothing about because you haven’t even given me a chance!” 

“You don’t deserve a fucking chance! After what you did, you don’t deserve a goddamned thing!” 

It’s there on his face again. That demented, broken, _mottled_ look of despair, rage and utter devastation. She draws away from him like he might burn her with his misery. 

But it's too late because it's already consuming her alive. 

“After what I did?” she croaks so quietly, she is not even certain she spoke the words at all. 

She might be crying now. She might be hovering over the ground for all she knows because suddenly there isn’t enough air in her lungs for the things she feels. She hasn’t thought about it in so many years; all that time she spent alone in the orphanage with so many children wailing for their parents in the night, the countless times she got sick with the flu and had no one there to comfort her, how she never got to know her parents as people and that they have become hazy shadows she can scarcely recall with any clarity. That she didn’t have her little shadow with her anymore, that her brother died before his baby teeth could fall out, and that all she has left of them are her mother’s eyes and her father’s cheeks. 

And suddenly, she _loses_ it. 

It comes on so quickly, like a rising tsunami within her, that she can’t stop it even if she wants to. She can’t see Matt’s face anymore or his twisted expression because there are only prisms of light and colour, only muffled versions of sound. So great is her rage, that she might fly apart in the air around them the same way her family did when the bombs went off. 

He is saying something to her, she thinks. Something ugly and angry, but she doesn’t let him finish. 

“ _You_ ,” she begins in a voice trembling with too many things to name, “ _You_ _have no idea what I have lost!_ There’s _nothing_ left of my family except _dust_ and you want to tell me what _I_ did to _you_! If it wasn’t for your people setting off the bombs, my parents would still be alive. Jacob wasn’t even four years old and he’s _dead_! They’re all dead and it’s because of what your people did that they’re gone! So _FUCK YOU_!”

Rey screams this in his face, shoving at his shoulder for good measure when he won’t get out of her personal space. He growls and snatches her hand, but she’s faster this time. She slaps him upside the head, sobbing and hyperventilating for air, and then she’s pushed him away. 

He might say her name. He might tell her to fuck off too. She doesn’t know or care. 

He stumbles back half a step and when she walks away this time, he doesn’t follow. She has no idea where she goes. She can’t see anything through her tears and the deep hollow ache in her chest that she thought was long since buried. 

*

It takes her the better part of the next morning to find the stream again. 

Her face is swollen and her eyes red and puffy. She only knows this because she saw her reflection in a puddle this morning. She wishes she had not. Well, she wishes for a lot of things, but she stopped believing in that kind of childish magic a long time ago. 

Matt is nowhere to be seen when she reaches the stream. She didn’t really expect for him to wait for her, so it is with a tremulous sigh that she starts making her way uphill again. She feels defeated and utterly spent. All that progress, however little it was, is gone now. 

Maybe it was never there to begin with. 

*

She loses her flight jacket sometime the next afternoon, but she’s too hungry and tired to go after it. It turns out that her fishing skills are far worse than Matt’s. 

Her t-shirt and pants are now so stained their original colour is impossible to tell. The medkit bounces against her hip with every step. She checks her belt every twenty minutes to make sure the knives are still there. 

She has been hearing strange sounds in the jungle ever since awaking this morning. Not the laughter, thank god, but other sounds. A sort of skittering whine, somewhere deep in the underbrush followed by snapping twigs. 

The nape of her neck prickles. 

She is certain she is being followed.

*

It’s pitch black and raining lightly. 

Rey wishes it wasn’t for many reasons, but mostly so she can hear better. She is as high up in a tree as she is comfortable with and she has one of the knives out. The blade is pressed against her arm, a cool and reassuring weight. 

Every lesson from weapon’s training flits through her head as she listens to the faint sounds of chittering and yelps. She thinks they might be closer now than they were an hour ago. 

She doesn’t sleep that night.

*

An unwelcome sight greets Rey in the morning. 

There are new twig arrangements laid out at the base of the tree. The symbols might be different this time, but she is not entirely sure. It takes her a while to notice that she has begun to tremble. Her teeth rattle together and she has to take several deep breaths in order for it to stop. 

She catalogues the symbols and considers kicking them apart but changes her mind. Something with at least some intelligence created this. For her. She doesn’t know if it is a warning or threat and she can’t chase away the gooseflesh that riddles her skin even when the sun’s strong rays shine upon her. 

*

She has started humming a lullaby in her head. She doesn’t remember where she learned it from, whether it was in the orphanage, or her parents taught her, but it provides her with some comfort. 

_...round goes the merry-go, one, two, three_ …

She doesn’t realize she has started singing it under her breath until the jungle suddenly falls silent. She stops immediately and nearly stumbles on a rock when she halts. She has just scaled a massive hill and she’s covered in so much sweat, she might float away down the stream. Some drip into her eyes, stinging as she shakily wipes it away and stares all around her at the trees. 

She’s looking for it. The thing that Matt described to her. But no matter where she looks, she doesn’t see a black blur anywhere. There is only green and more green. 

A branch snaps somewhere to her left. 

Rey ducks down and scrambles into the trees, swinging around the biggest one she can find and hunkering against it. She leans her head against the tree, trying not to hyperventilate, trying to cling to rationality so that she doesn’t fly into a panic. Not even the bugs make a sound and she knows whatever has been following her is here now. 

She wishes Matt was here. He would know what to do. He would be able to hear or see it far better than she could. 

But he isn’t here. She’s alone. Again. 

She reaches for her belt and takes out one of the knives. It’s darker here, under the trees, but still bright enough for her to see if anything tries to come at her. She doesn’t know what’s out there; it could be the Scylla seeking vengeance, fenrirs, or _anything_. Terror lurches up from her stomach and into her throat, and she closes her eyes against it, willing herself to focus. 

Then, she hears it. A whining, beseeching growl. 

Rey’s eyes snap open and then slowly turn to the left. Standing roughly twenty feet away on a gentle hill is the thing she first saw in the hatch. She slowly rises to her feet, noting the wiry fur, the yellow eyes and the sharp needle teeth. 

A fenrir. 

She releases a long, shivery breath. It’s too close for her to run. Those things are _fast_. Her only hope is to aim for the stomach with her knife. Its ears cock back; one is missing a chunk out of it and there’s a long ugly scar running across its face. The fenrir snarls at her, eyes glowing like twin lamps. She shudders, her hand shaking madly as she stares back at the creature in wait. 

She doesn’t have to wait long. 

Its rump shakes back and forth as it lowers its head to the ground in preparation to pounce, much the way a housecat will do when tracking a mouse. She doesn’t make a sound and only raises her arms up in defence, her eyes closing against what is coming. It’s not the best strategy - it’s not even a strategy at all - but the cold logical part of her mind knows that the odds of her surviving this are extremely low. 

When the fenrir leaps into the air, she prepares for its jaws to attach to her right arm. This is best-case scenario; if it snaps on her arm (assuming it doesn’t just tear it off), she might have a chance of stabbing it with her other hand. It’s a desperate plan at best and though she knows it will not work, she bends her knees to brace herself. 

But it never reaches her. 

It’s his scent that first alerts her to the fact that Matt is here. Somehow, he is _here_ when he shouldn’t be at all. In the instant before a massive man-shaped blur tackles the beast to the ground, all she can smell is burnt pie crust and her eyes snap open. 

“Matt?” she croaks and then when he and the fenrir roll several feet and crash into a nearby tree, snarling and in a tangle of thrashing limbs, she finally finds her voice. “ _MATT_!”

The fenrir shrieks in anger and surprise. But Matt hangs on tight, and in a wink of steel, his hand comes up with his knife and stabs into its flank. It _roars_ then, and before she can reach them, it wriggles out of his grasp far enough to attach its jaws to his leg. 

Matt yells, though he sounds angry more than anything else. 

Rey sprints across the clearing to them, her heart going a mile a minute and shock descending over her senses like a grey fog. She raises her knife in the air when she reaches them and hesitates only for a second. Strangely, it is Matt’s voice she hears in her head, a memory of his words from a few days ago. 

_You have to stop looking at it like it’s an animal._

And she does. 

She brings the knife down on the fenrir’s throat, narrowing avoiding its snapping jaws. It howls and thrashes, but Matt hangs on tight until it stops moving altogether. Someone is gasping for air and it takes her a while to realize that it is her. She goes to throw the knife on the ground like it’s a snake, but at the last second jams it back in her belt. The only thing keeping her rational right now is the blood running down Matt’s leg. 

Okay. Okay, he needs her help. She can do this. She can, she can, _she can_. 

Rey crouches down in front of him and grabs his hand to pull him off the fenrir. When he snarls at her, she only flinches a little. His eyes are black again and she knows he’s in it. That his Alpha instincts, or whatever it is, has sapped him of his senses. 

“Let go,” she says as calmly as she can. She’s shaking so badly, she can barely get a grip on his wrist. Her fingers are cool and her face as pale as milk when she captures his eyes with hers and repeats herself. “You can let go, Matt. It’s dead.”

He exhales through his nose like a pissed off bull but for a wonder, his grip slackens and he lets her help him up. His knee immediately buckles, and he snarls again, only this time it’s in pain. The fenrir is clearly dead and she tries not to look right at it. It would have killed them both if it could. 

She had to kill it. It was the only way. 

“Come on,” she says when he sags in her grasp. She’s half carrying him out of the woods, her free hand already snatching at the medkit to get the bandages out. If she can get him to the stream to rinse out his wounds then…

Matt growls deep in his chest. 

She looks up from where she is hefting his bulk to the stream and they both lurch to an unsteady halt. Her heart squeezes painfully and then _slams_ in her chest. She doesn’t quite understand what she is seeing at first, but all it takes is for her horrified brain to recognize the several pairs of glowing yellow eyes and she _knows_. 

Just under a dozen fenrirs line the opposite bank. They vary in size and colour; some are black while others are tan coloured, like the first one they encountered at the hatch, but _all_ of them are growling and eyeing them with ravenous hunger. 

“Run,” Matt rasps, trying to disentangle himself from her. 

“What - _no_ ,” she chokes out, but he’s too weak to make her let go of him anyway. She’s not leaving him here. They’ll tear him apart and…

They’re about to die. Right here, in this small, scenic little stream. Whether she tries to run and leave him here to die alone, or she stays, they’ll get her too. Leaving him is inconceivable, despite everything. 

One of the fenrirs sniffs the air and then looks directly at Matt with its horrifying yellow gaze. Right at where the blood is oozing down his leg. Rey reaches for her belt and takes out a knife, brandishing it in a threatening gesture. There is no hope for them - she knows that - but she can’t give up. Not after everything. 

The fenrir snarls at her and again Matt tries to push her away. 

“ _Fucking run Rey_ ,” he growls at her. 

She doesn’t have time to say anything to him. The fenrirs inch into the stream towards them, shifting stones into the water and she starts backing them up, winding her hand into Matt’s belt to hang on tight. There’s nowhere to go. Nowhere to hide or run to. 

It’s the end of the road and she is so bitter about this fact that she screams at the yellow-eyed creatures with all the fury she possesses. 

They flinch from her, but it’s not enough to dissuade them from their course. They’re starving and there’s a delicious meal in front of them. 

The black fenrir - the largest - growls at them and then leans down the same way the dead fenrir did. Preparing to lunge at them. She isn’t sure who slips in the rocks, whether it’s her or Matt, but then they’re falling to the ground together. Rey smacks the back of her head off a rock, but she hardly notices. She’s already half sitting up and dragging them against a tree, her knife raised. 

Even if she only kills one of them, it will be something. 

Matt is speaking to her, she thinks, but her blood is rushing in her ears too loudly for her to hear properly. The fenrirs descend on them in a tight circle and when the black one rears back, Matt’s hand comes up around the back of her head and he pulls her against him, trying to shield her with his body. 

She doesn’t see flashes of her life right then. She doesn’t hear her mother’s voice or her brother’s shrill laughter. Instead, all she sees when she closes her eyes against her inevitable demise is the horse she pet that day on the farm. With its large dark eyes and long eyelashes. 

And then, before the end comes, a new sound fills the ravine. 

“What…?” Rey breathes into the hollow of Matt’s throat and then she peers up and sees - “Oh my god, _BB8?!_ ”

Matt breathes out sharply on the top of her head and then they are both staring up in wild amazement as a black rectangular BB-series astromech droid flies above them in a series of shrill beeps and flashing lights. The droid soars through the air and lands right in front of them, wasting no time in extending one of its rotational arms towards the fenrirs. 

A blowtorch pops out of the end, hissing and spitting flames that reach upwards of 1,300°C. 

The fenrirs _scream_ when the flames touch them and immediately scatter, roaring and yipping to one another as they scurry across the stream and out of sight into the jungle. The black fenrir pauses on the edge of the trees and it seems to Rey that it looks directly at her. Right into her very soul. Those eyes promise her something and though the thought is irrational, she sees a hint of intelligence in its furious eyes. 

Then it disappears too, back into the jungle from whence it came. 

Matt’s arm slips from around her and she turns back to him in alarm, noting his pallid complexion and that his eyes are slipping closed. 

“Matt? Stay awake, damn you!” she cries at him and turns so that she can tap his face with her hand, trying to keep him awake. He’s lost a good amount of blood and as his eyes close he murmurs something almost unintelligible to her. 

“Ben… my name is Ben.”

He slumps against her side, unconscious. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You didn't forget about BB8, did you?


	11. Variables

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Therefore, when she comes upon a one story structure sitting at the top of a mountain she did not think she would ever find again, she has only one reasonable response. 
> 
> “Holy shit.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is that a white flag I see? :O

Rey is a lot things when she gets to the top of the mountain. Exhausted, filthy, adrenaline-sapped and anxious for what comes next. All these things are reasonable for someone who just narrowly escaped death less than an hour ago and spent the last three weeks fighting tooth and nail for survival. 

Therefore, when she comes upon a one story structure sitting at the top of a mountain she did not think she would ever find again, she has only one reasonable response. 

“Holy _shit_.”

Everything that has happened in the last three weeks has been temporarily and _utterly_ forgotten as Rey takes in what can only be their new shelter. 

It would seem BB8 has been busy in their absence. The main compound is almost complete. There are windows. A door that presumably locks. There is a _roof_ . There are stairs leading up the entrance. A fucking metallic _porch_ wrapping around the front of the complex. It doesn’t look homey or particularly welcoming being that it is constructed from polymer synthetics and titanium components (because yes, of course she researched the building materials for the shelter too) but it’s…

Home. _Home_. Holy shit indeed. 

BB8 pauses, it’s metallic dome head spinning on its gear to see why she has stopped. It communicates in binary, which Rey happens to be fluent in and though its tone is polite, she can sense a nervousness to its question. 

ϕ _Is the shelter built to your specifications, Officer Kenobi?_ ϕ

BB-series droids are all programmed with personality subroutines and at first she finds BB8’s rather childlike. Like she is a doting parent that this droid must impress. 

Rey blows out a long, disbelieving breath and almost breaks into hysterical laughter. She knows if she does she might not stop until she’s gone mad, so she manages to contain her amazement and shakes her head at BB8 reprovingly. 

“First of all, you’re going to have to call me Rey. Secondly, it’s great. It’s bloody _brilliant_ in fact.”

BB8 makes a series of pleased little beeps and its light flash colourfully. 

Rey beams at it. 

ϕ _Excellent. Shall I bring Officer Samberg inside for medical treatment?_ ϕ

She falters then, her smile fading away as she eyes the large unconscious form hefted in BB8’s mechanical arms. 

“His name is Ben,” Rey murmurs, her tone softening just a little. 

ϕ _I am sorry, Rey. That communication does not compute. Is this not Officer Matthew Samberg_ ϕ

“No, BB8. His name is Ben. Officer Samberg... elected not to participate on this mission.”

Which really is the simplest explanation she can give about the madness that has ensued since take-off from Earth. 

ϕ _I see. Shall I bring Ben inside for medical treatment?_ ϕ

“Yes. Let’s do that.”

Ben looks pale and used up. It’s strange to see him in such a vulnerable position, like he is a giant baby being carried in a droid’s arms. She applied a tension bandage on his leg before they moved him and though he lost a good amount of blood, he _should_ be okay once they get some medication in him. She thinks the energy he expended to attack the fenrir might have some part in why he hasn’t woken up yet. 

She still can’t believe it. That after their last fight, he _saved_ her life. That he told her to run, to leave him and…

Before she can dwell on it any longer, BB8 resumes up the path to the shelter. She follows after the droid, her gaze flitting to Ben’s closed eyes every few seconds with a look of tentative wonder. 

*

There are beds. With pillows and sheets. There is a bathroom. With a _toilet_ . And god, toilet paper. No more using questionable leaves. No more bathing in a river. No more sleeping in trees and getting kinks in her neck that she can never get rid of. There is soap and hot water. A door that can close and _lock_ for privacy. There is a small kitchen. A bloody couch for them to use. Tablets that contain _books_ \- oh god, she is going to read until her eyes bleed. They even have a cellar that BB8 has paneled the walls and floor off for extra food and supplies storage. 

The droid managed to install solar panels to the roof, a carbon back-up generator, hot water tanks that run on kinetic energy and a water purifier to boot. BB8 even put up proximity drones in the trees to detect movement around this section of the mountain. 

It was how BB8 found them when they were being attacked by the fenrirs. 

If it hadn't been for those drones, she and Ben would be dead right now. There is no question about that in her mind. When she thinks about for too long, about how they were less than fifty feet down the mountain from the hatch and that is how they would have died, her chest gets tight and she has to remind herself that it didn't happen that way. 

They're _alive_. 

To distract herself from the horrors of the day, she has already made a list of everything they still need to do. The rest of the food needs to be moved over here and a perimeter fence will likely need to be prioritized over the greenhouses for installation. A fenrir has gotten in before, after all, and they will need all the protection they can get. 

This is a great start though. It’s a fucking _fantastic_ start. 

“I mean it, BB - do you mind if I call you BB?”

ϕ _Of course, Rey._ ϕ

“This is amazing. I can’t… I just can’t get over it.”

They are in the kitchen, where BB8 has retracted its mobile arms so it is short enough not to bang off the ceiling. The shelter is nothing fancy but it’s a goddamned five-star hotel compared to the conditions she has endured for almost a month. 

ϕ _Are you alright if I tend to outside maintenance? The outer panels still need to be weather-proofed._ ϕ

“Yes, of course. Go ahead.”

The droid makes a series of pleased beeps and heads outside. She needs a shower. Desperately. She’ll have to look into fabricating clothing for them - after all, most of the clothing packed for the original Matt will not fit Ben. 

Which makes her turn from the kitchen to the lightly snoring form on the couch. 

An IV sticks out of his hand and two blankets are thrown over him to keep him warm. The interior of the shelter is at a comfortable room temperature compared to the balmy humidity outside, but he felt a little cool to the touch when she felt his head for a fever. Well, cool for _him_ anyways. 

Aside from that, he seems alright. His legs will take a few days to heal and the medicine should clear up any potential for infections. She’s just waiting for him to wake up now. 

For them to talk, as much as she dreads it. 

After everything that happened today, Ben has created yet another variable in her data. She does not like variables. But he went and did it anyways and she doesn’t know how to feel about it. 

When she took off this time, he must have followed her. Despite the things she said in anger, things that she cannot even recall with any clarity due to how upset she had been at the time, he followed her. Just like he did the first time. He _had_ to have been following her for him to be there precisely before the fenrir attacked her. 

She has mixed feelings about that, but she is far more perplexed with the _why_. Whys are not something she typically focuses on in research. The hows - yes. The whens - definitely. But whys are for folks who dawdle in qualitative research. The subjective. 

The emotional. 

She has never done well in the arena. Mostly because for however much she might observe people and note their often perplexing and erratic behaviour, she doesn’t understand them very much. She has always been self-reliant, even as a child. She had no choice; it was that or die, as brutal as that was. When she got older, friends were a scarce commodity when one’s brain operated at a much higher learning level than those around her. She can honestly say that she has never had a close friend and if she had, she was too blinded by her work and training to notice. 

People fuck her up. This is a truth she has carried for a long time. They don’t understand her and she doesn’t understand them. But she had a healthy accord with the predictable behaviour of her peers. She could predict, in her own scientific manner, how she needed to act, what she needed to say and generally, what she needed to do to get by in an extrovert's world. 

And now… Ben has thrown a wrench into her entire way of thinking about him. About people in general, in all likelihood. About _herself_. 

Was it fair to blame him, even indirectly, for what happened to Earth when he was probably only a few years older than her when the bombs went off? 

No. 

Was it fair to blame _her_ for whatever happened to his people to make him hate hers so much?

No. 

Those are the answers she has but she is also old enough to know that just because those are the logical conclusions to those questions, does not mean either of them really believes that. Some wounds run too deep for logic and rationality. This is something she is beginning to understand, not only about him but about herself. 

She is not as flawless in her pragmatic convictions as she likes to believe. 

Rey pulls out the scanner and peers at it for a moment before glancing up at Ben. His eyes are moving beneath his eyelids. Alphas dream just like regular humans. It shouldn’t be such a startling observation even though it is for some reason. 

She goes to his entry and makes three notes. 

  * _Bagwanaw: insult?? First entry of ab. language_


  * Reflective eyes in fire: tapetum lucidum, like in felines??


  * Massive energy expenditure leads to extreme fatigue, even unconsciousness



Before Rey closes his entry, she changes the title from Matt/Timmy/Universe’s Biggest Wanker to Ben. 

She likes that name much better. 

*

The shower is heavenly. 

Rey lingers under the hot water jets for longer than what is probably healthy. She can’t bring herself to leave just yet. She’s never felt so clean in her entire life. 

*

When Rey emerges from her forty minute shower, steam billowing from her skin and her clothes smelling like synthetic plastic, it’s to find BB8 fiddling with Ben’s monitors and making fretful little beeps. 

It is almost comical the way the droid turns back to her, its mechanical digits clicking like a harassed hen. 

ϕ _Ma’am, Ben’s temperature is well above normal parameters. I fear he has a high fever. We may need to prescribe him with salicylates._ ϕ

“Rey,” she corrects absently. 

ϕ _Ah yes. Sorry ma’am. Rey. Sorry Rey._ ϕ

She thinks fast, trying to decide the best way to avoid this sticky question. 

“Um… I think he just runs hotter. It’s a genetic condition… he told me while we were travelling back to the hatch. But, uh - I’ll keep an eye on it to be safe. If his temp goes up, I’ll give him some Aspirin.” 

She almost winces at her terrible lying skills. 

BB8 cocks its mechanical head back like she just said something completely outlandish - which technically, she kind of did because humans don’t typically have internal temperatures of 42 degrees Celsius - but the droid doesn’t question her any further. She isn’t sure if she should tell BB8 that Ben is an abhorrent. It shouldn’t make any difference to the droid’s programming, yet she can’t help remembering the way Ben reacted when he first saw BB8 in the hatch… He might not appreciate it very much if she says something so she holds off. Eventually, the droid will have to be informed, in case Ben needs special medical attention due to his designation. 

For now, it can wait. 

ϕ _Alright Rey. I will go complete a regeneration cycle in the hatch. Please let me know if you need anything in the night._ ϕ

“Thanks BB. I’ll do that.”

In a flash of pleased beeps and blinking lights, the droid heads outside where the sky is rapidly turning dark. This will be the first night since landing on this mysterious planet that she will feel even remotely safe falling asleep. 

She closes the door behind the droid and turns back to the room. Ben sleeps on, his chest rising and falling evenly. If he doesn’t wake up in the morning, she will have to try and do it herself. Which, considering how most of their interactions go, should be a real treat. 

Rey sighs, her eyelids drooping closed. She walks to the bedroom on the right side of the small adjoining corridor and she has barely taken her boots off and pulled the blankets up to her chin before she falls into a deep, uninterrupted sleep. 

*

This is a dream. 

That realization does not comfort her very much because she’s still stuck in it. Unable to leave until lucidity fully returns. 

She is on Falcon 8 once more, lifting off from Earth. Ben sits in the co-pilot seat but he’s only dressed in his stained t-shirt and flight pants. Her breath fogs her flight helmet, but she notices a strange thing. 

The face shield is cracked and covered in blood. 

“Are you going to fly this fucking thing, or what?” Ben says to her almost conversationally. 

When she looks out through the viewport, she can see the sky has turned red. A large, ominous mushroom shaped cloud is taking up the entire horizon, rushing towards them in a fiery blaze. 

“We won’t make it.” She sounds dull and resigned about this fact. 

On the ground below is a stampede of Fenrirs fleeing from the blast. They are not on the right planet, but this detail doesn’t really faze her. The black one from the jungle, the one who gave her that parting glower, is at the lead of the pack. It looks up at her even though she is hundreds of kilometers in the air by now. 

There is a promise in those yellow eyes; the same promise the creature made to her in the jungle. 

_I’ll see you again._

Rey glances at Ben then and this time, she is afraid because she knows he won’t be there. 

And she’s right. 

The horse is there instead, it’s belt pelt reflecting the unnatural red and pink radiation on Earth. Its name was Bucky and it shouldn’t be here, on her ship. It died with everyone else, but somehow it’s standing right next to her, whickering softly. 

“Are you going to get up?” The horse asks her and though the question feels meaningful, he just sounds exasperated. “Come on, _Bagwanaw_. Get up.”

“I can’t,” Rey tells the horse fearfully. “We’re not going to make it. We’re -”

*

“...not…”

“What? I swear I’ll go outside and get a stick.”

Her eyes open and through the bleariness in her eyes, she does not recognize the giant hovering over her. It’s dark in here, though she suspects that is only because the curtains are drawn over the sole window in this room. He is just a shadow above her - a massive one with a hand outstretched towards her shoulder. 

“A… stick?” Rey blinks, then realizes that there is _something_ hovering right _over_ her and then she scrambles backwards in her bed, her limbs tangled in the blankets and her heart leaping her throat. 

“ _Jesus_.” He backs up a step, startled by her sudden movement. 

“ _Ben_? What are you doing?” she says stupidly. Because yes, of course, it’s Ben. Her eyes adjust to the gloom and there it is - there is his signature scowl and she blearily wonders if he remembers telling her his real name. 

She’s _almost_ relieved to see him standing upright before he opens his stupid Alpha mouth.

“Calm the fuck down. I wasn’t going to molest you or anything.”

“ _What_ \- I just - _god,_ I can’t be blamed for being a little surprised to find someone hovering right over my bed like a complete psychopath!” 

Rey catches her breath and then pushes the blankets off of it, rubbing the sleep from her eyes and trying to fix the tangled mess that is her hair. 

“I wasn’t _hovering_. I’ve only been standing here for twenty seconds, you nutcase.”

“How was I supposed to know that? I woke up and you were just _there_. You can’t tell me you wouldn’t have reacted the same way.”

Ben doesn’t say anything to this and that is when she notices that he is leaning his weight on his other leg. The injured one is bandaged still, with his pant leg rolled up over it. He looks a little pale, but otherwise alright. 

“I… how are you feeling?” Her legs are not quite long enough for her feet to touch the floor from her bed. She stands up and fixes her rumpled clothing, not quite meeting his eyes. 

It was different when they were sleeping outside. The intimacy of bedrooms and closed doors kind of goes out the window when one is sleeping in a tree. But now… it’s weird having him in her bedroom, or what she has claimed as her bedroom. 

Maybe Alphas and Omegas don’t care about that kind of stuff though. She always pictured them as nomadic creatures living in tents and caves. 

“Fine,” he says stiffly. 

Rey nods and they just stand there in awkward silence. He isn’t quite blocking the door, but she would have to brush past him to leave. So she just stands by her bed, waiting for him to tell her why he thought it was so important to wake her up. 

And go into her bedroom. 

“Where’s the droid?” So that part he at least remembers. She wonders if he also remembers saving her life and how he shielded her right before they thought they were going to be eaten. 

Because it’s all she has been able to think about ever since. 

“Outside, working on the weather proofing probably. BB mentioned that a few things still need to be done to get the shelter ready.”

“BB?” His brow wrinkles and she has to fight not to roll her eyes. 

“BB8 is its name, actually. I just call it BB.”

“Lovely,” he mutters under his breath. 

“There’s food and fresh clothes, though they might be too small for you.” She would like to talk about what he plans to do now that they’re here, but she holds her tongue. They should eat first. _Real_ food that isn’t bananas or fish. 

Her stomach rumbles at that thought and she blushes when his eyes shoot to her. 

He opens his mouth, then closes it and turns for the door. She breathes a little easier when he’s out of the room and it’s only then that she smells him. 

Soft and sweet like butter tarts and vanilla icing. 

*

Breakfast is a quiet affair. 

They sit at the table like they don’t really remember the function of things like chairs and utensils, and eat their protein packs and vitamin water in complete silence. It’s odd, watching him handle a fork and knife, though she can’t decide if it’s because of who he is or the fact that he holds them rather delicately for someone with such massive hands. 

Rey looks down at her plate when he catches her peeking at him. She is paying far too much attention to him to be wondering over the way he holds a bloody fork. But she can’t help but steal glances at him every so often, which he obviously notices, because he is eating so stiffly, it’s as if his limbs are made from rusted metal. 

It’s just weird, she thinks. It’s weird that they are in any kind of kitchen. Together. That they even here at all when she was so sure they would die in the jaws of those fenrirs. The sharpness of her fear has faded, but her curiosity has only strengthened. 

Why did he save her - _again_ ? Why bother following her through the jungle at all when he could have easily found the hatch and avoided the fenrirs? God, she hates those nagging little whys and it becomes apparent that they need to talk, they _really_ do, no matter how much she wants to avoid it. 

_Just rip the bandaid off. Just ask him,_ Rey thinks as the quiet becomes just too much.

“So -” Ben winces like she’s about to try to convince him that jumping off a cliff is the best method of reaching the bottom but she perseveres because they really do need to get this over with “- should we talk about what happened?”

“I don’t see the point.”

She drops her fork on the table and gawks at him. He won’t look at her and she wonders if he is angry about what happened before she sees the _slightest_ red tinge to his cheeks. 

Is he… embarrassed?

“You followed me again.” That sounded a lot less accusatory in her head and she backpedals at the dark scowl he aims at the table. “I mean… it’s a good thing you did.”

“If you hadn't taken off again, I wouldn’t have had to.” 

Well, _he_ certainly has no problem with being accusatory. 

She has to close her eyes and count to five as she relives their argument. It still makes her angry if she thinks about it too much, but they have to get past it. They almost _died_ for Christ’s sake. She can be mature about this, even if he won’t. 

“I was upset.” 

Finally, he meets her gaze and his tone is as flat as the table when he says, “Really.”

“You can’t tell me you weren’t too.”

He leans back in his seat a little and he’s got that look again. The assessing, _plotting_ look that she has no idea what to do with. God, what is _with_ that?

“I didn’t take off into the woods,” he murmurs. 

There is something shaking in her chest and if she gives it room, she is going to explode the same way she did before. She doesn’t want to do that because _logically_ he couldn’t know about her dead family. But it still hurts. The accusations he threw at her, like she hasn’t suffered. Like she has no idea what misery and pain feel like. 

It’s difficult to compartmentalize it all away, but she does it because they don’t need to have another screaming match. She doesn’t know if she can handle it again. 

Ben just goes on watching her, those dark eyes flitting all over the small-micro movements of her face like he can see exactly what she is doing with her emotions. Stowing them away in favour of a plain, rational discussion. 

“I think we need to get a few things straight between us,” Rey says finally. She tries not to inflict any bossiness or _uppity twatness_ as Ben likes to call it into her tone. He doesn’t respond well to it and she’s tired of fighting with him. 

His jaw shifts and he taps the table with his fingers. “We do.”

“Okay.” She nods at him and then pushes away from the table far enough to pull one knee up for her to wrap her arms around. “I don’t know what your plans are now that we’re here, but until this shelter is completed, you won’t be able to leave anytime soon. You’ll need food and supplies. Weapons, a medkit.” She waves a hand to indicate excreta. “But here, there is protection. I’m planning to get BB8 to build a perimeter fence around what will eventually be a compound.”

“A compound for just one person?” he asks, his brow wrinkled. 

“Well, we have the supplies for one. This was supposed to be the first community of several but…” 

Rey doesn’t say it and though Ben’s expression darkens somewhat, he doesn’t interrupt. Those plans went out the airlock the second he boarded her ship. They don’t need to revisit that, though. It’s finished business and they still need to find a way to live on this planet. 

“...the fence will provide cover from the things out there. The greenhouses will keep us fed for - well - as long as we’re alive I suppose. We have plumbing, water, heat and basically everything we need here to survive. And once the main shelter is complete, more shelters could be built within the perimeter. We could make this place into whatever we want it to be.”

“You keep saying ‘we’.” It’s not a question and she can tell from the almost dreadful look on his face that he knows what’s coming next. 

“You should stay. I… I think you should stay.”

“Do you?” He sounds vaguely bitter when he says that. 

Rey bites her lip and nods. “Look, we didn’t get off to a great start…”

Ben snorts loudly at that. 

“...but we have a much better chance at surviving if we stick together. At least within the compound.”

“If we even get the compound built.” 

A flicker of something that she does not quite dare to call hope rises up in her. He doesn’t seem angry like she thought he would be and he isn’t outright refusing either. Maybe he has realized what she has. That every time they’ve split up, something terrible happens. That, for however much they might despise each other, they’re far better off together than alone. 

“We will get it built. We have BB8. Look what the droid accomplished in the weeks we were away."

He shifts his leg and winces, presumably from his injury. Her eyes flicker to the table like she has suddenly developed x-ray vision. Now that he is up and walking again, she has no doubt in her mind he will refuse medical attention. Luckily for him, it’s just his leg and not his hand or something. 

Stubborn ass. 

“I don’t want that droid near me.”

Rey blinks at him and almost misses what he is actually trying to tell her. Still, she cannot help but argue against it. If he is really considering staying here, then he will have to interact with BB8 at some point. It’s not like this is a big place where they can easily avoid each other. 

“BB8 is harmless -”

“Right, completely harmless even though it’s armed with a blowtorch and fuck know’s what else.”

“A blowtorch that it used to _save_ us.”

“I still don’t want it near me.”

Rey purses her lips and he just sits there, watching her expectantly for her concession. By now, she knows that any deal with this Alpha will come at some kind of cost, though she will later wonder what it is about BB8 that Ben doesn’t like and if his distrust of technology is rooted in something concrete, or just a cultural thing for abhorrents. She will make a note of it in the scanner, long after he is asleep and stare at the ceiling with her hypotheses filling her head on an endless loop. 

For now, she does what she has been doing since they got here. Brokering for whatever ounces of peace she can find in order to stay alive. 

“Fine. What else?”

He almost smiles at that, but the emotion is gone just as quickly as it came. 

“I want my own shelter. _Once_ this one is done,” he says before she can interrupt and rolling his eyes at her for good measure, “and once the perimeter is set up, then we can build it.”

“Okay. That’s reasonable.” 

“But if I decide to leave, I’m not fighting with you over it. Or being knocked over the head with something and tied to a fucking chair again -”

“-happened _one_ time and it was just because -”

“I mean it, Rey. This probably isn’t going to work and you know it.” He’s solemn when he speaks over her and she takes a moment to bite her tongue against a million rebuttals because he is probably right. 

But she doesn’t _really_ know that either. That’s the thing. If they could just avoid any sensitive topics for five goddamned minutes, then they might be okay. That’s not to say that she likes him, or will ever be friends with him, but he can be tolerable. Sometimes. Very rarely. 

Tolerable. 

“Then you have to promise that you’ll try.”

“ _Promise_?” he repeats incredulously. “What are you going to say next - that we should pinkie swear on it?”

But Rey is not one to be daunted. “You have to make an effort, Ben. A real effort and not for you to go back on it when I say something that pisses you off, because it’s going to happen. Just like when you inevitably say something that upsets me too.”

He frowns when she says his name, but he isn’t refusing either. 

“Only if you _promise_ to do the same.”

“Well, obviously -”

“I want to hear you say it.” His eyes and mouth are doing that thing again where he is almost smiling, but not quite. 

“Are you sure _you’re_ not the one who wants to pinkie swear?” That feeling only grows stronger within her, despite her sarcasm; a warm feeling in the pit of her stomach that unfurls to her chest. Hope is such a forgotten emotion that she almost doesn’t recognize it. 

He looks annoyed now, but she doesn’t let that emotion get away from her. Feeling a little foolish and embarrassed, she drops her knee and leans across the table with her hand outstretched, her pinkie finger extended. 

Ben stares down at it and then back at her, going from incredulous to speculative in the time it takes for her to blink. 

“I promise I will try to make things cordial… and that I will try to make this work,” she says and it’s a little like those stories she used to read as a kid. A knight’s oath, a brotherhood etched in vows and unshakable duty. Their duty may not be to each other, but it is to their mutual survival. Even though she is making this vow with a bloody _pinkie swear_ , the moment feels too fraught with meaning for her to feel too ridiculous over it.

She doesn’t think he’ll do it. The gesture is far too childish for his Alpha pride and…

He reaches towards her hand and when his much larger pinkie dwarves her own, just as hot to the touch as always, he looks as grave as she feels. 

“I... promise I will too,” he says quietly, only hovering the word promise with the barest hint of derision. 

When they pull apart, the air feels tentative between them. They didn’t shake on it, as other normal adults would have, but then again, nothing has been normal about them from the start. She can only hope that he keeps up his end of the bargain and she can too, for that matter. 

Suddenly, Ben huffs and says, “This doesn’t mean -”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. I hate you too,” she says dismissively. “Let’s just… be less vocal about it. Okay?”

Ben stares at her for a long time before nodding and the next breath she pulls in is easier than the last. 

*

After they tidy up and Rey gives him a short tour of the shelter, she pauses outside his new bedroom in a fit of tense indecision. He seems to sense this because he doesn’t close the door right away, only leaving a precarious sliver with which to frown at her through. 

She blurts it out before she can lose her nerve. “I’m sorry for what I said the other day. It was-”

“Forget it.” His eyes dart to hers before looking away. “I’m going to get cleaned up. After… you should show me where you want to put up the perimeter.” 

He closes the door and when it shuts with a soft click, Rey bounces back on the balls of her feet and relaxes. 

This is a start.


	12. The Juncture

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Are you really going to -?”
> 
> “Yes,” she says before he can finish, “Yes I am going to make you say it because you owe me that much.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little calm(ish) before the storm...

Rey supposes she shouldn’t be at all surprised when Ben insists on building his section of the perimeter on the opposite side of the encampment. Far away from her and BB8. 

ϕ _Is Master Ben upset with my work, Madam Rey?_ ϕ

She sighs at the address, but doesn’t bother correcting the droid this time. Madam Rey better than _ma’am_ or _Officer Kenobi_ and a far cry from some of the names Ben came up with in the last three weeks. She still hasn't gotten over being called an uptight twat but at least things have become more civilized since they got back. 

Silver linings don't come cheap these days. 

“No, no… We just - don’t get along that well.” 

Which is the goddamned understatement of the century. 

ϕ _Oh. Do you mind my asking why that is?_ ϕ

Rey shoves another spike in the ground and then wipes her brow off, wincing at the grains of dirt that have already collected there. The one consolation to all this hard work is that there is a shower waiting just inside for her. She still can’t quite wrap her head around that even though it’s been two days since BB saved them and brought them back here. 

“Well," she says, faltering at the curious swivel to BB's dome head, "we - it’s… complicated.”

 _Ben’s_ complicated, even if she doesn’t say as much. 

ϕ _Is it because of the crash? I received data updates once I powered on. The flight records are stored in my memory, but they don’t indicate the cause of the course alteration to this planet._ ϕ

Rey nearly chokes on her spit. 

“Oh - well, that was… that was because Ben got sick.”

God she hates lying, even if it is to a droid who likely doesn’t know any better. BB makes a confused beep and she nods at the droid for good measure, her cheeks heating as she fabricates exactly _how_ and _why_ they ended up so far away from their original target.

ϕ _Master Ben got sick?_ ϕ

“Yes. Very sick, actually. He doesn’t handle space flight well… I think he was a last minute replacement for Matt. That’s why, uh, he’s wearing Matt’s clothes.”

ϕ _I see, Madam Rey. But how did that cause the ship to re-route to a new destination?_ ϕ

“That is...” Rey says before licking her lips.

She should have thought about this in advance. Of course BB would have questions. They’re on an entirely different planet, the ship was destroyed and the hatch badly damaged in the crash. She didn’t even think about BB in the madness that has happened in the last month.

Rey flushes and doesn’t quite look directly at the droid. “That is because… Ben got sick in his flight helmet and when I went to help him we accidentally mashed some of the controls.”

Somewhat true, but only in the way that it’s mostly complete bullshit. 

BB makes an astonished series of beeps and Rey smiles weakly. 

“Yep. Pretty stupid, right? Good thing we survived.”

ϕ _I see. Is that why Master Ben has chosen to build his section of the perimeter over there?_ ϕ

She turns back to see Ben shoving spikes in the ground roughly fifty feet away. He took his shirt off a while ago and she has been taking great pains not to look directly his way. He’s just a big guy and with sweat gleaming on his skin… It’s not that she finds him _attractive,_ only that it’s been a really long time since she’s seen anyone with that much clothing off, besides the communal showers in the bunker. She never lingered in the showers, always trying to pick times when the fewest people were using them. Some might call that prudish behaviour but it’s not really about that for her. People just make her uncomfortable in general and she _might_ be a bit shy and embarrassed in those kinds of situations, but it has nothing to do with _him._ He’s not naked after all. 

He’s just hot. Er - warm. Very warm. She’s also very warm and…

Definitely not peeking at him. Nope. 

Rey affirms that to herself as she remembers to keep her voice down when answering BB’s question. Ben has good ears and though they haven’t been overly warm towards one another, they haven’t fought again either. Progress with that Alpha is hard won. 

“It’s a really long story, BB. Ben and I don’t see eye to eye on a lot of things and… anyways. Long story, like I said.”

ϕ _I don’t mind if the story is long. We have all day, after all_.ϕ

Rey turns back to BB8 with a faint smile. The droid _has_ been alone for the better part of a month. It is really not meant for such things. BB’s subroutines are programmed to make the droid social, so that it can work best with her and… well, Ben, she supposes. 

So, she blows out a slow breath and says, “Well, if you’ve got time…”

*

She is careful to leave out the bits about Ben being an Alpha and about him trying to steal the ship. Though she does not fear the droid will become violent or anything like that, she doesn’t know how it will react to finding out that Ben very nearly hijacked the ship in some kind of insurrection plot she still doesn’t know the details of. 

Instead, she makes it about their personality differences. She mentions that Ben grew up in very different circumstances than her - which isn’t a lie, even though she doesn’t know what those circumstances were. She gets to their fight from the other day and though she’s vague on the details, BB seems to glean enough of what happened. 

The droid has about fifteen spikes in for every five she has, but it sticks with her anyway, fiddling with the placement of each spike even though she knows it will be spot on to the specifications. She again wonders if it is just lonely and secretly welcomes the company. Even she has to admit it’s nice to talk to someone about everything that happened, even if she has to omit most of the details. 

“...so after he woke up, we talked. I apologized for blaming him for certain things and now we’re more or less on the same page. I think he’ll stay, even if he’s being stubborn.” 

ϕ _You apologized, Madam Rey?_ ϕ

“Yep. It’s for the best really. We just need to move on and focus on getting this camp secured.”

ϕ _Did Master Ben apologize?_ ϕ

Rey pauses with the spike in her hand, the knuckles of her left hand red and sore. She’s going to need ointment soon. All her fingernails have broken too, which she doesn’t care about for cosmetic reasons. She just hates when they get caught on her clothing and hair. 

“Well,” she says distractedly, examining her hands with a frown, “ _no_ , but I didn’t really expect one. He’s… not so great with words.”

With a series of low, displeased beeps, BB’s head swivels at her, first one direction and then the other as though in dubious repose. 

ϕ _You apologized for your fight… but Master Ben did not._ ϕ

“BB, did you see where I put my gloves? I thought they were in my pocket.” Rey drives in another spike in the ground and then looks around when she realizes BB is not right beside her. “BB? Where did you - _shit_.”

Her stomach drops to her toes when she sees the droid gliding across the encampment on its wheeled lower limbs - straight towards Ben. His back is turned so he doesn’t notice BB at first and though she knows she won’t get there in time to stop what is about to happen, she starts running across the encampment anyway. 

She probably should have started her little story by telling BB that Ben doesn’t like droids. That he, for whatever unknown reason, _despises_ them. But she forgot and now…

BB is about ten feet away when Ben suddenly turns around with a startled sound, his chest shiny with perspiration and his teeth bared. He looks surprised but that quickly transforms to anger when he sees who - or _what_ \- is towering over him. He has a spike in his hand and Rey knows before he raises it in the air that something terrible is about to happen. 

“BB wait! _Stop!_ ” Rey shouts, running faster. 

ϕ _You need to apologize to Madam Rey_ ϕ BB8 begins in basic, its light flashing orange and its mechanical limbs descending so that it looks very much like it is putting its non-existent hands on its non-existent waist. ϕ _That was very rude of you and -_ ϕ

Ben growls, the muscles in his chest tightening and his irises turning green. It occurs to Rey that he probably has no idea what the droid is saying to him. She doubts abhorrents learned basic in whatever passes for an education for them. 

But all that is important right now is that fact that he is beyond furious and she only has seconds to act. 

BB doesn’t see what is coming because Ben is faster, but a wonder, she is just a few seconds quicker than them both. With a last burst of speed, she skids in front of the droid and raises her arms protectively. 

“Ben - _don’t_!” she cries. 

But he has already started swinging the spike and while she has saved BB from being bashed upside the head, she has inadvertently put herself in the line of fire. 

The spike whistles through the air, right towards her head. 

She turns her face to the side on instinct and her eyes screw shut, waiting for the impact to come. A few seconds go by, and when she tentatively opens her eyes, it is just in time to see the spike drop to the ground from Ben’s limp hand. 

She - isn’t dead. 

Before she has time to marvel over this fact, or how he could have possibly had that much control over his motor functions to stop his own rotational inertia and mass distribution, a large hand closes over her upper arm and she is brought into the orbit of a very pissed off and _disbelieving_ Alpha. 

He very nearly lifts her off her feet when he yanks her to him, close enough that her eyes cross when she tries to maintain eye contact with him. He smells like sweat and burnt pie and though her eyes water from the concoction, she cannot even think of pushing him away. 

She might be in some dazed version of shock, but then he is speaking in a low growl and the spell is broken. 

“Are - you - _insane_?” Ben shakes her for good measure, glaring down his long nose at her like this is all somehow her fault. 

She narrows her eyes and then she tries shoving him away. Her hand slips on his chest and she absolutely ignores the way _that_ makes her feel in favour for slapping his hand. 

But he doesn’t budge, not even when BB8 makes a series of shrill beeps. 

ϕ _Madam Rey, shall I intervene?_ ϕ BB asks, though it sounds like it is two seconds away from doing just that, regardless what she says.

Good grief, this is going four ways from Sunday fast. 

“I’m fine!” she says hurriedly to the droid and when she looks back at Ben, his glare darkens. She wraps a hand around the one he is gripping her with and holds his gaze, hoping to transfer some bloody _reason_ back into this situation. “Ben - let go of me. Right now.”

He grunts at her and finally releases her shoulder, making her stumble back a few steps. 

Next to them, BB shifts on its wheels, practically shivering with anxiety.

“BB, go on back to the perimeter. I’ve got this,” Rey says to the droid without looking at it. It makes another displeased beep but does as she says. 

Ben glares at the droid and then back at her, his upper lip curling in disdain. He’s still angry, but something has shifted in his eyes, as though she might have actually gotten through that thick skull for once. But she doesn’t care. She’s _livid_. He almost hurt BB8. She doesn’t care what bullshit excuses he has. 

Rey balls her hands into fists and marches right back up to Ben, pointing her finger in his face. And if her hand is quivering, she pretends not to notice.

“You complete _arsehole_ -”

“Oh spare me,” he barks at her, “I told you -”

“- BB wasn’t going to hurt you, you _idiot_! It was just -”

“- I. Don’t. _Care._ I told you I didn’t want that fucking thing near me and then it flies at me, making those stupid fucking beeping sounds-”

“- speaking basic, you bloody _moron_ -”

“- don’t care if it was speaking Chinese, I don’t want it-”

“- grabbing me, _again_ , which I told you not to do but of course you never listen-”

“ - and don’t start with me about not listening, you take the fucking cake for -”

“- marching around here with your - god, I’m surprised they don’t _clank together_ -”

“- _What?_ You know what - I don’t care. The next time that thing comes near me, I’ll shove this fucking spike through its eyes -”

“- can perfectly understand you, _god_ you’re stupid, if you just -”

“ _I’m stupid?!_ ” Ben suddenly roars in her face. 

She almost backs away from him, but at the last second holds her ground, glaring up at him in open defiance. 

“Yes! You are! If you just used your brain for two seconds instead of -”

“You’re the one who ran in front of the fucking thing!” he shouts, advancing on her. “You’re the one who put their life in danger for a fucking _droid_!”

She blinks at him stupidly, her mouth forming words she doesn’t get a chance to say because he’s grabbed her arm again. 

“ _Hey_!”

“I could have killed you, you little _Bagwanaw_! One second later and this spike would have been inside your head. And you want to call _me_ stupid?” 

They breathe at each other after that, both of them red in the face and mere inches apart. Rey comes to first and slides her arm out of his grasp, taking a few steps back to put distance between them. He lets her go for once, straightening his back and glaring openly at the droid while it tentatively goes back to work on the fence. 

“You need to calm down,” Rey says as evenly as she can. Her heart is racing a mile and she doesn’t know if it’s due to him screaming at her, or because of how close they were. “I don’t know why you hate droids so much, but BB wasn’t going to do anything to you.”

“Why the fuck did it come over here then?” Ben growls. 

“To ask you to apologize to me.” She crosses her arms as she says it, raising her chin in a gesture that might be a little pompous but she is beyond caring. 

“To ask me - _what_? Why the fuck would I…?” he pauses, shifting to the side before narrowing his eyes at her. “What did you tell it, Rey?”

She huffs at him, and when he growls in his chest again, she fixes him with a withering glare. 

“Oh cut it out. I didn’t tell BB anything about your - well, what you are.” When he says nothing to this, she adds, “Or the fact that you tried to steal my ship.”

“Then why -”

“Maybe because you’ve been nothing but an absolute wanker towards me since day one.” 

She uncrosses her arms when she realizes it is a defensive gesture and tries to dispel the strange flutter in her chest. 

“It wanted me to apologize for being mean to you?” He could not sound more scathing and suddenly she has had enough. 

“Yes! And as silly as that might be to you, that doesn’t change the fact that I am the _only_ one who has taken any accountability since the beginning. I wanted to make this work and I will continue to do so, but not at the expense of becoming your damned _doormat_!”

She doesn’t realize that she is shouting until she hears her voice echoing off the cliffs and mountain sides. Her cheeks feel hot and she is about two seconds away from doing something embarrassing, like _crying_ of all stupid things, so before the startled look on Ben’s face can transform into the scowl she knows so well, she spins on her heel and storms into the shelter. 

*

Her hair is still wet when BB knocks on her bedroom door and finds her reading in bed from one of the tablets. She has a new change of clothes on and though she did most of her crying in the shower, her eyes are probably still red. 

BB8 rolls into her room and hovers uncertainly at the foot of the bed. 

“I’m alright,” she says before the droid can ask. She sounds like she has a head cold, but she doubts BB notices. 

ϕ _I am glad, Madam Rey. Master Ben is still outside working on the perimeter._ ϕ

“About that…” She sighs and throws the tablet down on the bed. “You should probably avoid Ben as much as possible. He doesn’t like droids very much.”

BB makes a couple of dejected beeps and nods its dome head. 

ϕ _I noticed this as well. Was it something I did?_ ϕ

“No,” Rey says right away. “It has nothing to do with you. I think something may have happened to him in his past… it’s not like he’ll ever tell me though.”

This last part she says mostly to herself and BB only cocks its head at her. 

“Anyway… are you heading back to the hatch for a power cycle?”

ϕ _Yes, Madam Rey. Unless you need anything else from me?_ ϕ

“No BB. We’ll transfer some supplies over tomorrow and finish up the spikes. We should bring some of the guns to the shelter too… the fenrirs might come back.”

ϕ _The ‘fenrirs’, Madam Rey?_ ϕ

“I’ll give you a briefing on the creatures we’ve encountered in the morning. There have been some… altercations between us and some of the lifeforms here.”

She shivers when she thinks about the strange twig arrangements and the maniacal laughter in the jungle. 

ϕ _Right Madam. Until tomorrow then._ ϕ

Rey murmurs “goodnight” and watches as the droid leaves, closing the door behind it. She glances down at the tablet but doesn’t pick it up again. It’s not like she can really focus right now anyway. 

She rests her chin on her folded knees and peers out her bedroom window. The sun is going down and out across the encampment, she can see Ben working away still and driving spikes into the ground with aggressive gusto. 

They lasted forty-eight hours. Two bloody _days_ before fighting again. How are they supposed to get through the next eternity?

*

Rey is fiddling around in the kitchen when Ben finally comes in for the night.

She barely glances at him before turning back to the boiling pot on the stove. His shirt is balled in his fist and he kicks his boots off before stomping across the room and out of sight. A moment later, she hears the shower come on and she pushes out a sullen breath. She is making pasta. She has no idea how tasty the dehydrated sauce and noodles will be, but she’s going to eat it anyway because the protein packs are fucking digusting. 

By the time the noodles are done, Ben emerges from the bathroom and enters the kitchen. He’s wearing another severely undersized shirt and pants that seem to fit him okay. He plods over to the cupboard without sparing her a glance, his shoulders and back taut even if he is pretending she doesn’t exist. 

Rey stiffens. 

She didn’t know what she expected; for him to avoid her, perhaps and skulk in his room until she vacated the kitchen seemed the most likely. But here he is, rummaging in the cupboard a few feet away from her.

She drains the noodles in the sink and then mixes the sauce in. Only a moment ago, she was just about ready to pass out. Building the perimeter is hard work but she is not one to shirk her duties. She’ll roll up her sleeves and work just as hard to get it done, even if she can’t move as fast as Ben or BB. 

But now, she is fully alert again. 

He better not start anything when she has an empty stomach. She won’t be held responsible for what she does with the collinder otherwise. 

She grabs a heaping plate of pasta and makes a beeline for her bedroom. She’ll just clean everything later, after he’s in his bedroom. They don’t need to have another confrontation, not when she is still drained from their earlier fight. 

It’s a great plan really and she’s about halfway across the living area when Ben does what he does best. 

“You’re not eating at the table?”

Rey halts by the couch, her eyes cringing shut the way they did earlier when he almost brained her with the spike. She almost keeps walking, and _would_ have if he wasn’t for him making a soft sound of wry amusement. 

“I didn’t take you as someone who hides from their problems.”

And just like that, she turns on her heel and _barely_ refrains from throwing her plate at him. 

“I’m not _hiding_ from anything. I’ll eat where I damn well please, thank you.”

Ben is leaning against the counter, a protein pack sitting unopened on his plate and his lips folding together as he regards her. The kitchen light is on above his head, lending his black hair the appearance of having a halo around it. 

She almost snorts at that comparison. 

“Right," he murmurs softly, "and that has nothing to do with the fact I’m here.”

“Are you suggesting that I’m afraid of you?”

Ben breathes shortly through his nostrils. “Hardly.”

Rey falters at that before her expression hardens. “Well, if that’s all -”

“I might be sorry.”

Her jaw drops and she almost loses her grip on her plate of food. Ben continues staring at her, his arms crossed loosely over his chest and unmoving from his spot by the counter. She closes her mouth, not quite defrosting from her outward hostility. 

“You _might_ be."

“About some things.”

His jaw shifts and she wonders what in the world has compelled him to say this. Certainly not BB8, so… 

Rey shuffles a step closer, her chin lifted as she regards him warily. “Which things are you sorry about?”

He sighs with annoyance and drops his arms to lean forward on the tiny island in the middle of the kitchen. 

“Are you really going to -?”

“Yes,” she says before he can finish, “Yes I am going to make you say it because you owe me that much.”

He growls something under his breath that she doesn’t hear and then gestures at her with exasperation. 

“About the ship.”

She raises her eyebrows in surprise. That was not the part she thought he would apologize for, but now that he has, she finds that mysterious flutter has returned to her chest. 

“About trying to hijack it?”

“No,” he says quickly. She opens her mouth to angrily retort, but then he raises his hand at her, forestalling her from speech. “I’m sorry you were there and that… however disproportionately _violent_ and _insane_ you reacted to that, you were clearly scared. I probably would have reacted the same way so - yeah. I can let that go.”

Her brows wrinkle at that. “Ben, you realize what you did was -”

“My business,” he says simply and she can tell from the set of his jaw that he will remain uncompromising about that fact no matter what she has to say about it. “I never intended to hurt you. That was never in the plan but… things happened the way they did and I can understand why you fought back. I guess I wasn’t prepared to encounter a Beta with your ferocity.”

He smirks faintly at that and she scowls in response. 

“Right,” Rey says. She looks down at her plate and puts it down on the coffee table before it burns her hand. “But you still haven’t explained why you think it’s perfectly acceptable to hijack a spaceship -”

“You don’t have all the facts.” Ben shakes his head impatiently when she sputters at that and says, “I’m not - look this isn’t about that right now.”

“Then… what is this about?”

“I’ve been… this is… For fuck’s sake, I’m not good at this.” 

And Rey realizes an amazing thing. Ben is _frazzled_. She forgets about her anger for the time being and simply gapes at him. 

“You’re not…”

He runs a hand through his hair and gestures between them. “This hasn’t been fucking easy, you know.”

Rey sucks in a breath and then schools her face into resolve. “Try.”

“What?” he says distractedly. 

“Try. You promised you would.”

“On a pinkie swear,” he says sullenly. “Do you realize how ridiculous that is?”

“Are you reneging on the terms of our pinkie swear?” She manages to ask that with a straight face and feels pretty proud of herself. 

Ben, for his part, doesn’t crack a smile. He stares at her for a long moment and then blows out a breath. 

“I’ve been… harsh. At times.” 

Rey snorts at that and he glares at her minutely before tapping the counter. 

“There have been some assumptions made. From both of us, but… you’re not as bad as others of your kind.” 

“Wow. Is that the best you can do?” 

“Don’t push it,” he says warningly and then relaxes, if only a little. “I’m sorry if I was presumptive. About you. I have my reasons the same as you do but I will - _try_ \- not to do that anymore.”

“Alright. And what about BB8?”

“What about it?” Ben scoffs. 

“You can’t attack it again.”

“That fucking thing attacked _me_ -”

“No, it didn’t and furthermore, you will have to interact with BB at some point. We’re stuck here, remember? We need that droid. If you just gave it a chance -”

“No,” he says flatly. 

_"Ben_ -”

“Did you just whine at me?”

“No,” she says, coughing and blushing a little. “I just wish you wouldn’t be so damned stubborn all the time.”

He raises his eyebrows and, to her intense stupefaction, smirks at her. “Oh, like you’re not stubborn _at all_.”

“Only about some things,” she says with a sniff. “Can you at least consider -”

“I have considered it,” he says, his smirk fading away. “My answer hasn’t changed Rey. If you had any idea…”

He trails off and this dark look comes over his face before he glances away from her. 

“What?” she says quietly. 

“Forget it. Just…”

“...just what?”

“Sit at the fucking table, would you? We’ll get bugs in this place if we eat in the other rooms.”

Though, by now, she is pretty sure him wanting her to eat at the table is not entirely for that reason. She hesitates by the coffee table before picking her plate up. 

“What were you before, a house-mom or something?”

“A _what_? Just because I like things clean, doesn’t mean -”

“ - Pffft, you just like being bossy for the sake of it -”

“ - says the biggest uptight swot I’ve ever met -”

“ - just because I like things done _correctly_ -”

“ - on wafer thin ice, _Bagwanaw._ ”

“I do not like that nickname.”

“I know.”

“Ass.”

“Twat - _hey,_ this is a clean shirt!”

“Oh boo-hoo. It barely fits you anyway.”

“Just because I am not a midget like _some_ people -”

“- wafer thin ice, Sasquatch.”


	13. Symbols and Omens

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben shifts beside her and she thinks he means to kick the twigs apart, but he doesn’t touch them. Neither does she. 
> 
> “Are you implying these are a warning?”
> 
> “I honestly have no idea,” she admits. “It’s just that every time we’ve found them, something bad happens.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a quick, friendly note about Ben: I know there are a lot of questions about Ben's behaviour right now and those are totally justified. His smarminess is not excusable, but there are good reasons behind it that WILL be illuminated in time. He is not going to open up to Rey right away because they frankly don't know or trust each other very much right now. It's only been a month, which might seem like a long time, but just remember that they are from very different worlds of prejudice and violence. 
> 
> But those answers will come. Things are being kept vague intentionally and will be revealed in good time, piece by piece. Rest assured my lovely readers <3
> 
> Now - back to it, shall we? Things are about to get crazy, kids.

It’s the same dream again. Every night the same. 

They’re on the ship, taking off from a world on fire and every time she turns to speak to Ben, the horse is there instead. 

“I think the fenrirs are coming for me,” she tells the horse fearfully. 

“I don’t know what difference you think it will make telling me.”

“But I have to tell someone,” she says to the horse. 

It whickers at her and tosses its long black mane. 

“The question is, _Bagwanaw,_ what are you going to do about it?”

Rey awakes from the dream the same way, too. Bathed in sweat and trembling. She showers it all away in the morning, long before Ben wakes up, and by the time daylight fills the world anew, she has stowed it away, burying it deep in her mind. 

They’re just dreams, she tells herself. And for now, she believes that. 

*

The scanner is not a secret. Not really. 

It’s not like Ben will ever look at it, Rey reasons to herself. It’s not like she is keeping a log on him to report to anyone else. It isn’t even anything concrete, just a collection of data she looks at every night before sleep, adding little pieces to a puzzle she does not even know the shape of. 

There are technical things he has let slip, whether intentionally or not. 

She knows that his people run on a lunar cycle - whatever that means. She thinks it might have something to do with their reproductive needs, but she isn’t sure, so she leaves a question mark next to that one. She knows he speaks another language, but so far he has only uttered insults (as far as she knows). She suspects _Bagwanaw_ means “fool” or “idiot”, or potentially something meaner. His eyes do a lot of interesting and sometimes terrifying things depending on his mood. They reflect in firelight like a cat's eye, for Christ’s sake. He is also freakishly strong and freakishly quiet - much to her detriment. 

But there are other things she logs that have nothing to do with his designation and much more to do with the enigma that is Ben. 

He is not a morning person. 

At first, she had taken his churlishness for his general hatred of her, but when they got past the worst of their anger, she still found him waspish first thing. So she has learned to give him space in the mornings, sometimes not speaking to him for several hours until he approaches her. It’s frustrating when she actually needs to talk to him in the morning - which she still does because he can suck it up and drink the same dehydrated coffee she drinks every morning, thank you very much - but she can manage it now that she knows what to expect. 

So that little piece goes into the scanner. 

He seems to dislike salty and rich foods. She isn’t certain about this observation yet - time will really tell when they start growing fresh food in the greenhouses that have not been constructed yet - but she has a feeling he might be a sweet-tooth, which is frankly bizarre to her. Alphas don’t strike her as the type to prefer desserts and fruit to raw meat and - well - more raw meat. But he eats very little to begin with compared to her, so many of her previous assumptions have kind of flown out the window.

 _Fruit?? Baked goods??_ This goes in as an entry as well. 

Ben likes things tidy. Like _really_ tidy. He’ll go around with a broom after she is done eating and sweep under her chair for any stray crumbs she might have dropped. She told him off the first few times he did this, but soon she gave up getting annoyed about it because they hadn’t gotten any bugs inside - well, besides the one night when a gigantic moth-like insect got in the house and they had to chase it around with a pot and pot lid to get it back outside when Rey refused to kill it. 

He likes to fluff the pillows on the couch (the very same couch he rarely, if _ever,_ uses) and he folds every article of clothing, including his socks. She knows because she walked into the laundry room off the kitchen one day and found him folding each sock individually. 

Like a serial killer, or something. 

So _Neat-Freak, Psycho-Killer_ goes into the log too. 

Rey recognizes that keeping a log on the person she will be bunking with for the foreseeable future is kind of weird. If not a little creepy. But it’s just for her, just to understand this maddening and _occasionally_ tolerable creature that she has come to slowly and painfully know over the last month. 

He never has to know that she finds the way he eats interesting, or that she wonders who taught him about mythology and all the other things he knows about that she never thought an Alpha would ever know. She can’t help her curiosity when he is her literal night and day, just like she can’t help but very much accidentally peek at him when he takes his shirt off from the heat of the day. 

And he never has to know about that, either. 

*

“The hot water tank is acting up again.”

Ben emerges from the bathroom, his dark hair dripping water and a towel wrapped around his waist. Rey makes a sound that resembles a car backfiring and quickly turns back to the sink to avert her eyes, where she has been draining a can of vegetables. 

“Oh,” she squeaks, “well, I’ll let BB know. Or better yet, _you_ -”

“Tell that bucket of bolts to install it properly this time. I almost got fucking neutered in there just now.”

Her face flushes hot red, but she ignores her embarrassment and turns back to him despite herself with an exasperated sigh. 

“First of all, saying things like _please_ and _may you_ goes a long way.” He pauses by the island, toweling off his hair and giving her a few hard blinks like she is the unreasonable one. She isn’t thrown by this though and she continues in a falsely cheery tone, “Second, you can ask BB yourself. You are just as capable as I am - well, at _most_ things I guess.”

She can’t resist needling him sometimes. She really can’t. 

“Says the woman who had to ask me to open a jar of olives for her yesterday.”

“Says the woman who has a Masters degree in plant biology and horticulture, _and_ can pilot a spaceship.”

“I wouldn’t brag about your flying skills. I’ve seen the way you pilot.”

“If you mean that I am capable and managed to get us here in one piece, then I fully agree with you.”

Ben lowers his towel from his hair and gawks at her incredulously. She does not look at his chest or abs, not even a flicker of her gaze in that direction. He has a small trail of black hair that descends below his towel, but she isn’t looking at that either. Nope. 

“Do you remember the asteroid field? Because I do.”

“Anyone would have had a hard time navigating that!”

“Right and who turned off the proximity alert again?”

“I’m sorry, do _you_ have your pilot’s license?”

A pause, then, “Touche.”

“Exactly.”

“But I do have a PhD in philosophy and history, which if I recall correctly, outranks a Masters degree.”

Rey can only gape at him before she narrows her eyes susipicously. 

“A PhD from where?”

“That’s not important,” Ben replies, shrugging his ridiculously broad shoulders. He smirks at her, his dark eyes twinkling mischievously. “Nothing to come back with, then?”

“Well - you - _hey_!” she exclaims suddenly, earning her a roll of the eyes. “That is completely besides the point. _You_ should talk to BB about the hot water tank.”

“I think I’ll pass.” He walks away, giving her the wide expanse of his back. She can see the gland on the nape of his neck, all shiny with water and pink. 

Stupid stubborn Alpha. 

“Git!” Rey calls to his retreating back. 

“Whatever, _Noomaya_.”

She pauses, mouthing the word before reaching into her pocket for the scanner. She logs in the word, or at least how he pronounces it, and then adds another entry below that. 

_PhD in philosophy and history - or bullshit, more likely._

She smirks when she puts the scanner away. 

*

ϕ _Madam Rey, may I have a moment to speak with you?_ ϕ

It is midday and yet another scorcher. Rey has given up on trying to wipe the sweat from her face and accepted that she is just going to have to be disgusting for the duration of the afternoon. She puts a hand on her hip and almost knocks her gun out of its makeshift holster there. She has started carrying it with her outside, the same as Ben. They both agreed to be armed from now. It’s safer that way until the perimeter is up. 

BB hovers nearby as she works on her bundle of spikes and she pauses to smile tiredly at the droid, shielding her eyes from the sun. 

“Sure, BB. Did Ben talk to you about the hot water tank yet?”

ϕ _Oh, no Madam. Does it need to be fixed again?_ ϕ

“Of course he didn’t say anything,” Rey mutters more to herself than to the droid and then she sighs. “Yes, BB. It needs to be fiddled with. I think there might be a faulty converter somewhere in one of the valve components. The hot water keeps running out.”

ϕ _Right, Madam Rey. I will get to work on that right away._ ϕ

“No rush. The cold water is kind of nice after a day like this… but we don’t have to tell him that. The princess needs his hot water first thing in the mornings.” She winks at the droid and it makes a series of playful beeps. 

ϕ _I was not aware that Master Ben is descended from royalty, Madam. Nor that he is gender-fluid._ ϕ

“Oh - no. He isn’t. It’s just a funny nickname I came up with for him.” BB cocks its head in confusion and she gestures dismissively, laughing a little. “Forget it. So, what did you want to talk about?”

ϕ _Well, Madam, this is about Master Ben, actually_. ϕ

Rey cocks her head back in surprise and glances over to where the Alpha in question is measuring out where his bundle of spikes will go by marking the dirt. They’ve almost completed this portion of the perimeter. She thinks they might need one more day and then they can start mounting the plates on. 

“Oh? What about him?”

ϕ _It is likely nothing important Madam, but I thought you should know that Master Ben has been visiting the hatch for the past four nights. My proximity sensors have detected him each instance. I thought it strange since you told me that you both felt it wise not to be outside at night._ ϕ

“Yes, I did say that.” Rey frowns, her brow wrinkling in thought. They decided not to venture out into the night the same day they agreed to carry a gun around even if they are within the compound grounds. They haven’t seen any fenrirs, or any of the other creatures she briefed BB on, but they can never be too careful. 

So why would Ben risk going out after dark and into the hatch no less, where BB8 does its power cycle every night? Doesn’t he hate the droid?

Unless he’s trying to sabotage BB somehow…

“What does he do when he is in there?” she asks lowly, trying to keep her voice down. 

BB makes a series of beeps, its lights flashing green and yellow. 

ϕ _I am not fully activated during the night, so I do not see what he is doing. Only that he comes into the hatch and leaves after approximately twenty minutes._ ϕ

“And he hasn’t tried interfering with you in any way?”

BB whistles in astonishment, which makes Rey tense up and quickly dart her gaze to where Ben is. He continues working, but she notices him glancing their way with ill-concealed aggravation. Hopefully, he didn’t hear any of that. 

ϕ _Maker no! I really am not sure what he is doing, but I thought I should tell you just in case he is not feeling well again. It is noted in my data that humans can act peculiarly when they are sick_.ϕ

“Right… well. Thank you for letting me know. Let’s keep an eye on him… in case he gets sick again. That’s a great idea.”

ϕ _Right Madam Rey._ ϕ

The droid wheels back to the shelter, presumably to fix the hot water tank and she has to fight against herself to not just march up to Ben right now and demand what he is up to. She doesn’t think he would do anything to hurt her, or sabotage the shelter but…

Why would he go to the hatch when all their supplies are in the house now? Why go after dark at all?

She turns back to the spikes and discovers that she was almost in a good mood today, for the first time in a long while. That she and Ben’s almost light-hearted bantering this morning, coupled with the relative quiet of the last week, have created something of a routine for her that has been lacking since their disastrous arrival to this planet. 

She almost laughs at herself, in a bitter and angry sort of way, that she feels _betrayed_ by what BB has told her. But she doesn’t know anything yet and she’s trying, _really_ trying, not to make assumptions about Ben anymore. 

Rey can’t deny it though. It’s all very suspicious. She glances at Ben as she works, watching him off and on all day as though she might see the truth on his face. 

That night, she leaves her bedroom door opened a crack and stays awake for as long as she can. He does not leave his room once after he goes to bed and by the time she falls asleep, dawn paints the sky light blue. 

*

For a long time, they roved the stars. Sightless and powerless creatures, casual observers to the stars and cosmos. They were scouts and little more, sent to report on the planets and moons of life, and then return home. 

They did not like this task. They were more than simple emissaries. But the elders did not see it that way and so, when they sent them on what was to be their final scouting mission, they decided that they would not return. They would stake out their claim on a new world and exist as they wanted - rulers in their own new kingdom. 

But never, in their wildest dreams, did they think they would discover such a place that would not only give them their own little kingdom but power - why _power_. Limitless power. 

And that is what this planet is. Sure, there are other lifeforms here that exist in a state of symbiosis with this world, but they are inconsequential. It’s in the water, in the very same river that is so unremarkable in comparison with the enormity of the rest of the planet. That river is very special. 

They discovered this almost immediately after landing here on their ship. 

They drank from it and they began to _change_. No more were they casual observers. No more were they simpleton creatures with big dreams and little means. They are shadow and storm, they are life and death. 

As they hide within the gloom of the jungle and watch across the mountain tops to where the humans are busily constructing their useless shelter, they use their old skills of observation to catalogue their comings and goings, much like the little female humanoid with her little scanner. 

They know there are others out there hunting them already and they are not in a hurry to make their move. They are happy to watch and see… though this planet has been theirs for many decades now, torturing the other native creatures has lost its sparkle. 

These two are new, with their shiny protector droid and their shiny little shelter. It’s all so precarious. So vulnerable to attack. 

And they have no idea. 

So, they will watch for a little longer and see what is to come of them. But that does not mean they will be idle…

One hisses and looks up the sky before emitting a deep, throaty chuckle. And soon, the others join in, shaking with rabid mirth as the sky begins to darken. 

*

Rey glances at the sky with an uneasy frown. 

It is hard to know if there is a storm coming, or if the mists are just thicker than usual. She glances at Ben almost automatically to see if he senses anything off. The spikes are nearly completed and they have met at the edge of the perimeter, which will hopefully soon be completed. He stands only ten feet away, only two spikes left for her seven. 

His shirt is off again but that’s just fine by Rey. She can look at the pretty mountains and ignore it. And him. And his shiny skin. And her nagging suspicions about him. According to BB8, he didn’t visit the hatch last night, but that might be because her door was opened. Or maybe it’s because he goes in there to pray, for all she knows. The point is she _doesn’t_ know and it’s driving her crazy. 

Thunder rumbles in the distance and Rey momentarily forgets about her suspicions to make a small unhappy sound before glancing at Ben again. 

“I’m not a damned weather vane.”

She startles and her eyes shoot up to his guiltily when she realizes she _might_ be staring at his chest. Just a little. 

“What?” she says, like the intelligent and educated adult she is. She blushes and looks away from his scowl to regard the sky once more. “I know that, you dolt. You just… have a good sense for that kind of thing.”

“Like a weather vane?” He doesn’t sound as annoyed when she glances his way this time, even if she does roll her eyes at him. 

“You said it, not me.”

He grunts at that and she can help but smirk, just a tiny bit. He only does that when she is right about something. It’s sad that she has started to notice these things, but probably only natural. They have spent a lot of time together. Unfortunately. 

Her smile fades when she thinks about the hatch. If only he wasn’t so damned secretive all the time...

“Did it finish the weatherproofing on the shelter?”

When Rey looks at him this time, there is a curious tilt to his head that she absolutely ignores. 

“Yes, _BB_ did,” she replies, emphasizing the droid’s name. “There are lightning rods on the roof too, and the ports are all sealed off so no water will get inside.”

BB transferred all the weapons and the rest of the food into the shelter a few days ago. When Ben found out the droid completes its power cycles in the hatch, he demanded that everything be moved over under their supervision. 

She still finds the whole thing ridiculous. He should just tell her why he hates droids so much, then maybe she could reason with him that BB is only here to help them. He could also tell her why he’s going to the hatch every night while he is at it. 

That would make things so much easier, but then again, Ben has never been about making _anything_ easy. 

“So… do you think it will storm?” 

She pauses in putting a spike in the ground and so does Ben. His spikes are all done and he wordlessly grabs three out of her pile, stopping to scan the sky once more. He is filthy, just like her, but at least he has the luxury of taking his shirt off. She can only imagine what he would do if she strutted around in only a bra. 

He would probably burn his eyes out of his sockets. 

He looks distant when he peers up at the darkening sky, his jaw clenched and the muscles in his arms tensing. She looks away when she realizes she is watching him a little too avidly and turns to look up at the sky as well. 

“Finish up with those last spikes,” is all he says and when she purses her lips at the bossiness of his tone, he fixes her with a distracted smirk. “I’ve seen sloths move faster than you.”

“We have been over this,” she replies crossly, “I’m working just as hard as you are. Just because I have smaller arms than you, does _not_ mean -”

“Do you always have to be this shrill first thing in the morning?” He winces before going to work on the next spike, his gaze flicking to the sky every few seconds. He is working faster than he was a few minutes ago and despite his shitty comment, Rey does the same. 

She does not want to be out here for much longer with Ben looking at the sky that way. 

“Do you always have to get on my nerves - let’s see - _always_?”

“Here I was, thinking we were getting along.” 

He could not sound more sarcastic if he tried. 

“Arsehole,” she grits between her teeth before slamming the next spike in the ground with far more force than necessary. 

“Doesn’t mean I’m wrong, though.”

“You’re still an arsehole.”

As Rey places the next spike, she almost misses the tiny smile on his face and in all her spite, she works twice as fast so she’ll finish her spikes first. Ben notices her strategy about ten seconds later and narrows his eyes at her in challenge. 

They practically race each other after that and by the time they finish, it has started raining. 

Ben still wins. The prick. 

*

The windows rattle as another concussing round of thunder passes overheard, shaking the floor under their feet. Rey flinches, just like every other time this has happened in the last thirty minutes or so. They stand at the front door, the screen door closed as they watch the torrential rain outside. She doesn’t remember storms from Earth, though she heard from others over the years that the surface is littered with them due to the radioactive fallout in the atmosphere. 

Earth’s surface is a lot like Venus’s now, a deluge of storms and ionic particles. 

Rey briefly thinks of Commander Akbar and all the others. Of the children she grew up with in the orphanages, the ones who survived like her and went on to take menial jobs in the underground bunkers. She wonders if Poe or any of the others made it to their planets and then has to make herself stop wondering at the bitterness that accompanies these thoughts. 

Lightning flashes in the sky, making her breath catch. 

Though it hasn’t struck anything close by - yet, anyways - she cannot help but tense up every time there is a flash of light. She still hasn’t forgotten their frantic jaunt through the jungle when it had seemed very much that the lightning had been _chasing_ them. 

“It’s not blowing away,” Rey remarks, referring to the storm. Forks of lightning hit around their mountain top continuously, striking some of the perimeter spikes from time to time and hitting the hatch. BB8 is in there right now and she hopes the droid is doing okay. “That isn’t normal. Don’t you think -?”

“Thank you for once again stating the obvious.”

She glowers at Ben but the look lacks its usual heat. “Shouldn’t we go to the basement?”

He leans against the doorway and doesn’t even glance at her when he responds. “Is that your default for everything?”

“What?”

“Last night, you thought you heard a noise outside and suggested we go downstairs.”

Rey pauses for a long moment before sniffing and crossing her arms. “Is it your default to be a smarmy prick all the time?”

“Original. And also - no. If it installed the rods properly, we should be fine in here.”

" _It_ has a name. And _also_ -”

“- here we go-”

“- I’ve spent the majority of my life living underground. Of course, it’s my default to find safety in a basement.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Great response, though I suppose it’s a step up from grunting.”

Ben shoots her a sullen glare and then looks back outside. His scent has changed again. It’s not quite bitter, like it usually goes when he is angry, but there is a sharpness to it all the same. He is nervous, she thinks, but he’s better at hiding it than she is. He must have learned that trick in Alpha 101, right up there with how to constantly be a git and how to make others feel inferior all the time. 

“Do you think it’s natural?” 

Ben’s eyes flit to her, narrowed in question. 

“The storm I mean. Do you think it’s natural?”

“What else would it be?”

Rey chews on her lip and shrugs. “I don’t know… I’ve just never heard of a storm staying in one place like this.”

Ben doesn’t reply right away and together they regard the freakish storm. The air smells metallic from all the lightning and she keeps having to suppress a sneeze every so often. He reaches up to scratch under his jaw, where one of his glands lies. She takes care to not watch him do this and wonders if he is getting sick again. Or whatever it was that happened to him in the jungle. 

“Keep that gun on you when you’re outside. We shouldn’t go out after dark - not unless we have to and never alone.”

Rey almost asks him about his visits to the hatch then, but a rare glimmer of intuition holds her back. The timing isn’t right, not with the storm going on and them worrying over what be causing it. Whatever he is doing out there, she’ll just have to hope she catches him going outside one night. She might even follow him, if she can. 

She gazes up at him, unable to hide the uncertainty from her expression, and when he notices, she can only nod and look away. They watch the storm for a little while longer before Ben goes to the kitchen to make himself some dinner. 

She finds it hard to pull herself away. Lightning and thunder are terrifying, but she finds it all kind of beautiful - as long as she is indoors, that is. She wonders if she ever did this with her parents, or her brother; watching the summer storms blow past their home in a spell of awe and wonder. 

Rey lingers until her feet hurt from standing and then she closes the door, on the storm and past both. 

*

“ _Ben_!”

Behind her, she hears him thump down the stairs and then jog to her side, where she is standing about ten feet out from the porch. His boots are not fully laced and his shirt sits askew by his belt like he just put it on in a hurry. He has his gun out and she instantly regrets not bringing one with her. She really needs to make that a habit. 

The storm dissipated sometime late last night. Everything is still wet from the rain and the green of the jungle seems more vivid today. Glimmering, lush and bright. 

Bright enough to illuminate what was left for them overnight in perfect clarity. 

“Fuck.”

“Yeah,” Rey replies faintly. “This… isn’t good.”

The twig arrangements are back. There are more of them this time around, littering the ground in their foreboding, archaic symbols. Wordlessly, she takes out the scanner and documents them, and for once, Ben doesn’t comment on it. 

“This is the same as the second time.”

“The second time?” he asks quietly. 

“After we… the day we fought those fenrirs, I found these at the bottom of the tree I was sleeping in. Not long after, we were attacked.”

Ben shifts beside her and she thinks he means to kick the twigs apart, but he doesn’t touch them. Neither does she. 

“Are you implying these are a warning?”

“I honestly have no idea,” she admits. “It’s just that every time we’ve found them, something bad happens.”

He seems to mull this over for a moment but before he can formulate a reply, BB8 rolls out of the hatch and (taking care to give Ben a wide berth) joins Rey’s side to see what they are looking at. 

ϕ _Madam Rey, are these the messages you mentioned to me the other day?_ ϕ

Ben grunts something insulting under his breath but Rey pointedly ignores him. 

“Yes, BB. We’re still not sure _what_ is making these or why but… I think we ought to stay inside today. Can you keep a lookout from the hatch?”

ϕ _Of course, Madam Rey._ ϕ

The droid dutifully returns to the hatch, while they regard the twigs in silence. The last week or so have calmed the burning fear in Rey’s chest, but it’s back now. 

Her hands start to shake and she finds she is unable to quell that for the rest of the day. 

*

Rey reads. Then she cleans. Then she watches Ben tidy where she has already cleaned and she very nearly picks a fight with him over it before deciding to try to read again. She looks out the small windows to the still world outside and watches for BB8’s hourly signal, when the droid flashes its light three times through the small hole in the pilot’s console to indicate that everything is still clear. 

She wishes Ben would stay in his room, but he sits at the kitchen table while she lingers on the couch. Just as tense as she is, limbs spindled to taut motions. They don’t speak much and take turns peeking out the windows. 

Nothing moves outside. 

*

“For the last fucking time, I didn’t see it! It was storming at the time and we were running for our lives. I don’t know how many times I have to tell you the same goddamned thing.”

“I just think that it must be the same thing leaving us messages. If it is, _that_ thing hasn’t attacked us, so -”

“ - yet. It hasn’t attacked us _yet_.”

“- maybe it’s not our enemy. Maybe it knows about the things here and it’s trying to help us.”

“Are you willing to bet our lives on that? Cause I’m not.”

“Of course not, don’t be thick. I’m just saying -”

“ - the thousandth fucking time -”

“- that it _could_ be friendly. The twigs are its way of reaching out to us.”

“Or it’s leaving a big sign out there for everything else telling them that we’d be good roasted on a spit.”

Rey shrugs from where she has all limbs folded together tightly on the couch like she’s cold. These are all possibilities of course, but she has a weird feeling about those twigs. If that thing, whatever it was, was trying to hurt them, then why haven’t they seen it again? 

Ben, of course, is not convinced. He stands by the front door, staring through the window like he can somehow magically see in the pitch black out there, his hand on the butt of his gun and his jaw clenched so tightly, it’s a wonder his teeth don’t shatter. 

Before she can deliver another counter-argument, he scratches his throat again. She notes the dark circles under his eyes that were not there a while ago and bites her lip. 

“Have you…?”

It’s robotic, the way Ben turns his head to her. Like his neck operates on rusted coils. 

“Have I what?”

Sensing the danger in the air, Rey wisely changes course. 

“Have you been having weird dreams?”

This question is probably too personal for him, but it’s far better than the one she almost asked. He seems to know what she meant to say anyway and she flushes under his knowing glower. 

“I don’t remember my dreams.”

Rey blinks at him and it won’t be until later she’ll realize that did not mean he didn’t have strange dreams too. 

*

... _wake up Rey, it's time to get ready._

"I... what?"

It’s late when she wakes up. 

She starts, not realizing she fell asleep at some point. Her neck has a kink from resting against the arm of the couch and she rises with a wince, stretching out her shoulders. 

Then she notices that Ben isn’t in the kitchen. 

Rey jumps to her feet and immediately pads to his bedroom door. It’s locked and when she knocks on it, at first quietly and then more loudly when she gets no response, she knows he isn’t in there. Nor is he in the bathroom or the basement when she checks. 

Which can only mean one thing. 

Rey turns back to the door and pushes out a pained breath. She bloody well hopes he didn't sneak outside to go to the hatch. Even he can't be that stupid - can he? She goes to the cupboard on the far side of the kitchen and withdraws a flashlight. Then, she disengages the safety on her gun and goes to the front door. When she pulls the door open, she has a moment to notice that nothing makes a sound out there; not so much as the whine of the bugs greets her ears. But this observation abruptly flies out the window because then there is a new sound, filling up all the spaces between here and the entire world for all she knows. 

Evil laughter resounds off the mountain cliffs, first in one voice and then in a chorus of utter madness. Rey screams, but she can’t even hear herself anymore. There is only that laughter and the cold certainty that whatever warning had been left for them this morning has come to pass. 

She runs out the front door and into the night, shrieking Ben’s name and hoping she isn’t too late.


	14. Into the Woods, Dark and Deep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hot breath tickles her back through her sweat-soaked t-shirt and at the last second she veers to the right, further into the darkened jungle. A rush of air blows past her and she knows she barely missed the swipe of its paws. She just keeps pushing as hard as she can even though it’s futile. 
> 
> She knows how this ends. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't know if anyone here had the chance to watch Castle Rock, but there is an episode in the first season that heavily inspired the style this chapter takes. (See End of Chapter notes for more details). I've added a Major Character Injury tag on here - I probably should have done that awhile ago but I honestly forgot. Apologies friends! 
> 
> Much to be unpacked in the next chap, which I hope to post by this weekend :D

It is what passes for twilight on this planet when the chaos on the mountain top dies down. 

The Laughers are uncharacteristically quiet as they listen to the human male shout for the shiny droid. For _help,_ all because his little human woman is in peril. 

“Hey!” the human male roars in his deep voice. “ _Hey_ \- yes you, you beeping galoot! Don’t worry about those fucking things, they’re all dead. Now help me goddammit! We’re going to lose her!”

Even from across the valley, they can hear the droid give a shrill and definitively anxious response, like it _cares_ what happens to the woman just as much as the human male does. 

“I don’t speak - _would you listen to me_? They’re dead! And Rey will be too if we don’t -” The human male cuts himself off from speech and seems to listen as the droid makes another series of harried beeps. “Are you - just - _cut it out_! I don’t know where that other thing went and frankly I don’t give a fuck! Now stop wasting time and…”

The human male trails off yet again, only this time it’s not because of the droid. 

The female starts whimpering and thrashing in his arms. The male, the one the female calls _Ben,_ softens his tone considerably and stumbles back towards the shelter with her in his arms. The droid rolls behind him, after giving a departing and distinctly troubled glance to the trees. 

The Laughers scan the trees too, but they can’t see what the droid was looking for and return their attention to the humans. 

“Hey, _hey,_ shhh Rey,” Ben whispers to her. “I know it hurts. It’s going to be fine, everything’s going to be fine. No, no Rey - stay awake - _fuck_!” The woman flops in his arms and he pauses by the staircase, looking at the sky as though help will magically appear. Guilt laces his tone, though this doesn't interest the Laughers very much. “Alright. Alright, goddammit.” He shoots a glare at the droid and starts up the stairs. “Move your ass, Laser Brain, let’s get her inside and…”

The droid makes a dubious bleep at what is presumably _not_ its name and quickly follows after him, closing the door behind them. 

Then their voices fade away, leaving the jungle in shocked silence. 

They have been here this entire time, watching from the shadows. They watched when Ben crept outside to the hatch. They watched when the fenrirs descended on their pathetic compound and surrounded him under the cover of night. They watched when Ben came back outside and almost got devoured by the beasts, only to shoot several of them with his little toy gun and climb on top of the hatch to escape them. And they watched when the little female, _Rey_ , came outside and tried to rescue him. Her plan backfired, spectacularly, and while that had all been deliciously entertaining, things did not end the way they should have. 

The fenrirs are dead. Every member of the pack, gone. A few were killed by the hatch, but most of them now lie at the bottom of the cliff. Dead, all of them. 

That should not be possible.

Within the darkness, where not even a bug dares to stray in their path, the Laughers make thoughtful clicking noises, like this has been a casual performance put on for their critique. Only, they are not laughing as they normally would. 

Things are not going the way they thought would; their predictions are not bearing fruit. 

The humans are fighting back. _Fighting back_. But even accounting for their piteous attempts at self-defense, this does not explain how they defeated an entire pack of fenrirs. This does not explain how over ten of those beasts now lie dead at the bottom of the mountain. Fenrirs are stupid, yes, but they’re strong and fast. Two puling humans - even if one of them is strong and capable - should not have stood a chance against those creatures. 

The Laughers don’t understand it. 

The humans must have help, but who would dare defy them? Not the tribes in their grainy huts by the river. What was it that the female human called them? The Scylla. Well, the Scylla know better by now than to resist them. The only reason they’re still alive is because they agreed to stay out of it. When the two humans killed the few rogue ones still left, they were happy to see them go. The last of that willful breed are gone now. 

So, if not the Scylla, then who is providing the humans with aid? Who would be daring enough to go against them? The fenrirs - yet another clever little name from the humans - are too stupid to think of working against them. 

And they have apparently paid the price for that stupidity tonight.

_Are the Others still alive, then?_

_Impossible. We wiped Them out years ago._

_But then how did the female know the fenrirs were coming? If she hadn't gone outside, the male would be dead. They_ **_both_ ** _would be dead._

_It can’t be Them. We killed Them. Ate Their hearts, ran Them mad, and bashed Their offspring off the cliffside. They are gone. Dead._

_Maybe… maybe not. They were crafty little shits._

_I don’t like this. You are taking too many words from the humans._

_I like the way they speak… but that isn’t the point. Someone is helping them. We must find out who._

They do not laugh now, as they curl and hiss and slither around the trees of the opposite mountain, listening as Ben and the droid try to save their precious little friend. The female with her clever names and her clever brain. 

_Rey_. 

Even from here they can smell her blood. She will be lucky to survive the night. 

And yet, even through their mirth over her impending death, there is a kernel of doubt where there wasn’t before. Is it possible… could the humans have drunk from the river too? 

They watch from the mountain tops, speculative in their unease. 

*

Rey swims in a sea of agony and darkness. 

She thinks she might be dying, but she has no room for bitterness over this fact. She doesn’t quite remember how she got here, or why she is in so much pain. She can smell blood even though she can’t pry her eyes open. Someone is speaking to her quietly. Gently. Their voice is low and saying things she does not understand. 

Something soft brushes her face, lighter than air. 

“Bucky?” she rasps. 

“Hush, _Noomaya._ You’ll be okay.”

She wants to believe that voice but something feels very wrong with her legs. It isn’t until she’s placed on a flat surface, with the pain flaring so brightly she soon loses consciousness, that she realizes she can’t move them. 

“I told you…” she murmurs almost unintelligibly. “I told you... they were... c-coming for me.”

“Just stay with me, Rey. _Stay… with… me_ …”

Words lose substance and then she is falling, through the table, through the floor and dirt, and down into an endless pit. 

Into the deep, dark woods. 

*

Time is no longer linear. 

This fact does little to reassure Rey, though she thinks there might be some significance to her noticing at all. 

It’s stark daylight and she knows right away that this is a memory. A tall, yellow house looms above her. She is in the backyard, standing near the brambles of the forest bracketing their property. It’s a school day and her mother is calling her name through the kitchen window. She cannot see her though. 

This does not surprise her overly. She can never see her. Some things are just not meant to be. 

The trim around the windows is a bright, cheerful white and there are flowers blooming in the garden. It is time for school, but Rey does not want to go. She knows what will happen when she leaves. She knows when she takes her purple and pink lunchbox from her mother, it will be the last time she packs her lunch again. That when she gets on the bus that morning and her brother doesn’t, because he is sick with the flu and cannot go to school, she will never see him again either. That her father’s whiskery kisses will end. That the sky will turn red and this will all go away. 

She is home. But this is not home anymore. There is no home. It’s a paradox, an anomaly barely understood in science. She thinks she must be dead, but she can’t remember why this should be important. 

Rey turns for the woods and runs within the branches, her limbs small and nimble as they were on that day. A child’s body within the mind of a dying woman. Branches whip her in the face, scratching precious skin. _That_ feels real when nothing else about this does. 

_Rey,_ her mother calls to her. _Rey it’s time to wake up, dear! It’s time to go._

She runs faster, like the devil is chasing her, and when she starts breathing hard, her lips burning from the rush air, she blinks and... 

*

...falls hard to the ground. The wind is knocked out from her lungs and her throat is raw from screaming. She blinks up at the black sky, noting constellations that look nothing like the ones of Earth. 

She was running, but why?

In the near distance, she hears shouting and before she scrambles to her feet, she _knows_. There are growls in the humid air. High-pitched yipping and screeches. The laughter has finally ended, which is good because she can hear again. She can bloody well _think_. 

But it’s bad too because she knows what is here now. 

She runs faster, only this time when she falls again, the world spins and she is... 

*

...scampering through the forest. 

Leaves fall all around her and the smell of impending autumn is soft and cloying. There is a hazy quality to the sky. Glossy with a surreal glow. This place is quieter. Less chaotic. Less painful. She doesn’t have to think here. 

_Rey,_ her mother calls to her, but her voice is getting farther and farther away. 

She just has to keep going, further on into the woods. She can beat the bombs. She can stop it all. She just has to keep going. She just has to... 

*

“...stop screaming, Rey. Just breathe. Come on, just - _shit_ , bring me another shot! She’s going into shock.”

There are beeps going off all around her and garbled snatches of conversation. Monitors chime somewhere and she is reminded of the time she fainted in health class and had to wear a heart monitor for a week. This place feels even dimmer than where she was before. Like grasping onto water. Sheets of red and white light flash before her eyes and just before a grinding sensation shoots up her left hip and she shrieks in agony, she hears him again. 

“Shhh, it's almost over. I promise, okay?" He sounds closer now and there are fingers brushing her hair away from her face while the pain in her hip makes her moan and thrash. "I know... I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have gone out there. I - _no,_ not that one. Here, hold the bandages. We have to stop the bleeding…”

He sounds so afraid and she thinks she should be frightened too, but she’s on her way out again, she’s...

*

...barely caught her breath before she rolls over on her hands and knees to crawl along the back of the shelter towards the hatch. That’s where the shouting is coming from. That’s where she needs to go. 

Gunshots suddenly fill the night air, five in a row. 

Rey whimpers in fear and drops to the ground, staring around at the darkness as sweat drips in her eyes and her fingernails crook through muck and dirt. She dropped her gun a little while ago and was unable to find it in the dark. All she has is the flashlight and she's not about to turn it on and attract what she very much knows is out there. 

More yipping goes off before several footsteps thud into the ground nearby. 

It's the fenrirs. She is sure of it. Her dream came true and she experiences a thrill of superstitious dread. 

More shouting fills the night and she's on her feet again, crouched down as she rounds the corner of the shelter. Though the night is dark, BB8 is flashing lights all over the side of the hatch and she has no trouble seeing the predicament they're in. 

Ben has somehow climbed on top of the hatch. His t-shirt is torn but he otherwise looks alright - for now, anyways. BB8 is still inside, extending its arms through the holes it must have punched through the hull and using its blowtorch to keep the fenrirs from getting to Ben. She doesn’t understand why he isn’t using his gun until she realizes that he must be out of bullets. 

He’s vastly outnumbered.

There must be over a dozen fenrirs there. A few lay dead on the ground from when he has shot them but there's still too many. He aims one of the beasts with a savage kick when another one tries to leap onto the roof, his boot connecting with its jaw. His scent reaches her on the wind; bitter and eye-watering. He’s terrified. Ben, the Alpha of Alphas, is _scared_. 

Some long forgotten instinct within her notches up.

They aren’t friends. But they aren’t enemies anymore either. She isn’t sure where that leaves them, only that she can’t sit back and watch him get hurt.

"Shit, shit, shit," Rey whispers in the tiniest voice possible. 

Ben snarls when one of them gets brave and tries to flit past BB's blowtorch. It yelps when the droid quickly aims at its legs, the beast falling on the ground in scorched fur and skin, screeching in agony. The others curl their ears back and growl, eyeing along the sides that BB cannot reach. 

And then she sees it. 

It's the black one from the stream. The one who gave her a parting glare, the one she has been dreaming about ever since. The black fenrir stands taller than the others, drooling and growling while the others spin on the spot and screech fretfully. The intelligence in its seething yellow eyes is uncanny. 

She has to do something right now, or Ben is about to become fenrir-chow. 

Maybe she can outrun it, like they did the first time with the tanned fenrir. She’ll lead it away, towards the cliffs, otherwise…

The black fenrir lowers its head, leaning down on its front paws and its rear wagging back and forth, and Rey knows they’re out of time. She clicks the flashlight on and doesn’t give herself time to think about the sheer lunacy of what she is about to do because if she does nothing, they will tear Ben to shreds and come for her next. 

She has forgotten all about the laughter in the jungle and twig arrangements. She does not think about why Ben has gone to the hatch again and what he might be hiding. 

All she knows is that he’s alone and defenseless up there, and she has to try. 

“Hey!” Rey shrieks, running out into the clearing and waving her arms. The flashlight scatters light across the hatch and into the fenrirs’ eyes, making them snarl and wince away from her. “Over here, shitheads! This way!”

She can make out Ben from the corner of her eye, his face taking on an uncharacteristic expression of horror. He might be shouting her name now, but she can’t hear anything beyond the blood rushing in her veins. She doesn’t focus on him - she can’t if they have any shot at this working. The fenrirs turn back to her in a cacophony of aggressive yips, but it is the black one who really looks at her. Those yellow eyes fix on her, just the same way they have in her nightmares, and she knows that even though these creatures seem to want Ben more than her, she has their leader’s full attention.

 _I am going to run now,_ she thinks and there is something dimly prophetic about this line of thought. Like she has already seen the way this plays out. Like she’s already lived this moment. _And they will chase me. They will catch me. They will -_

Suddenly, the ground lurches beneath her feet. 

Her hand flies up to her chest and she wheezes for breath, the colour flushing from her face. Her heart first slams and then _flutters_ unevenly in her chest. Pins and needles race up her jaw and into her hands and feet. She feels like she is floating away from herself, that she is being lifted away from this moment - a moment she already knows by heart. 

Because this already happened, she realizes. 

In the next two seconds, she is going to break into a sprint across the clearing. Ben will scream her name and BB will smash its way through one of the hatch walls, but they both will be too late. 

Her wild goose chase will succeed in saving them, but she will, _she will_...

*

...never forget the scent of birch. It permeates in the air, earthy and sweet. The scent is familiar and she experiences what feels much like a doubling of her vision even though this isn’t really real. Even though this place is dead and gone, just like she is about to be. 

She races through the forest of her childhood, running her fingers along the peeling bark, and sprinting, listening as their footfalls grow louder behind her. 

They’re fleeing from the blast. They’re hunting her down. 

She doesn’t know how it can be two things at once, only that she has to keep running.   
Her heart rate slows down and she knows the moment before she crashes through a thick row of bushes that she isn’t going to make it. 

Everything is dropping away from her.

They’re gaining on her. The fenrirs, her family, the past and the roar of radioactive fire. They’re going to catch her now, it’s coming any second. Pressure compounds on her chest, but there is something strange and rhythmic about it. Like someone is pressing as hard as they can in stuttered repetition. 

Her breath chokes and the pin and needles return, stronger than before. The fenrirs pound into the ground after her, chasing her across a forest they have no business being in. They are going to rip her apart and there is nothing she can do, she just has to...

*

“...hang on Rey. Bring that to me. I’ll keep up the compressions.”

Fingers tilt her chin back and then there is something pressing over her mouth, blowing air into her lungs. Her ribs sear with it and she thinks she might be dying now. Truly dying. 

“Stay with me,” that voice tells her. “Come on, _Noomaya_. Breathe.”

She wants to ask what that word means. He utters it so much more softly than anything else he has ever called her, but before she can, she is pulled back down into the blackness once more. 

Shrill alarms fill her ears, following her all the way down. This might be the end, this might be…

*

...the stupidest fucking idea she has ever had. 

Rey knows she isn’t going to make it to the cliffs. They’re gaining on her and though she doesn’t make the mistake of looking back, she knows exactly which fenrir will be right there, leading the rest. 

Hot breath tickles her back through her sweat-soaked t-shirt and at the last second she veers to the right, further into the darkened jungle. A rush of air blows past her and she knows she barely missed the swipe of its paws. She just keeps pushing as hard as she can even though it’s futile. 

She knows how this ends. 

Above her, in a flicker of movement almost too quick for her to catch, she sees something leap through the trees. It’s too dark to make out and besides, it’s about to happen any second. She knows this but she’s powerless to change it because this already happened. It’s a done deal, as Poe Dameron once told her during the training. 

_A done deal._

Dirt sprays on her back and in the second before the black fenrir lunges at her and knocks her to the ground, in the instant before its jaws attach to her hip and the next several minutes snap away from her with the breaking of her bones, she sees something large and furry swing down from the branches. 

But then there is blood. There is screaming. There is the crack of her hip and leg fracturing. There is torn skin and merciful shock. 

And when the blackness steals her away from this place to the next, she expects everything and nothing, but certainly not…

*

“...Bucky?”

She is lying on her side and the sky is the same colour it was when she ran into the forest behind her parent’s house. But she is nowhere near there now. A large black stallion stares down at her and when she takes in the old barn in the background, where a broken fence divides the pretty rolling hills of farmland, she knows where she has come to after all. 

“We have to go,” the horse says to her in a perfectly reasonable voice. Like horses just go around talking to people all the time. 

“I’m dead.” She doesn’t know how to feel about this fact, only that it must be true. 

She can’t feel her heart beating. 

“You think so?”

Rey frowns at the horse’s sarcasm, but when she goes to push herself up she realizes that her hands aren’t that of a child’s anymore. 

“Shouldn’t you be shepherding me into the afterlife or something?” she asks, pushing herself to her feet. Her left leg crumples on her and despite that there isn’t any pain, she has to lean on the horse to keep upright. “What’s wrong with my leg?”

“You already know, _bagwanaw._ Stop asking stupid questions and get on me.”

Rey lurches away from the horse, but immediately has to grab onto its mane to keep from falling. 

“ _What_? What does that even me -?”

She cuts herself off when several dark forms appear out of the forest nearby. The black fenrir growls at her, salivating down its meaty chops. Its face and fur are covered in blood. 

Her blood. 

“But this… already happened,” she murmurs through numb lips. 

“No, it hasn’t,” the horse tells her. “Those aren’t fenrirs. You need to climb on. _Now_.”

Rey swallows thickly and scrambles to do just that. It’s painful, climbing onto a horse with only the use of one leg. She shimmies herself in jerky motions and then she is on. The horse turns them away from the forest, its muscles strong and sure under her hands. The scent of birch fades away and she hangs on tight to the horse’s mane. It doesn’t wear a saddle but why would it? This is not a creature that can be tamed. 

She turns back, giving a final terrified glance to the fenrirs before the horse suddenly takes off without warning. She cries out, plastering herself flat across the horse’s back and hanging on for dear life. 

“Where are we going?” she cries, the wind rippling through her blood-caked hair. 

“You already know,” the horse tells her, only she realizes that it isn’t really speaking at all. This is all happening in her head, but that fact somehow doesn’t make this any less real. 

The horse sprints across the field and though she knows the fenrirs are giving them chase, she thinks that maybe this time, she might outrun them. 

Her fingers tangle in those soft black locks, which is a good thing, because a sudden searing pain rips across her chest and abdomen. Her limbs seize together and she thinks it is a lot like when she electrocuted Ben with the hypo-spanner. 

Only this time, she can hear his voice. This time she…

*

...tightens up on what can only be the kitchen table as the electrical currents of the AED go through her. This is the same place she and Ben have been eating for the last seven days. The same place they argue and bicker and sit in their silences that should be awkward but aren’t anymore. 

And then she hears him - _really_ hears him - and a flicker of hope goes through her. 

“Don’t give me that shit. Do it again.”

Beeps go off next to her ear and they sound sad to her. Forlorn with resignation. Is that… BB8?

 _Don’t give up,_ she wants to cry at them. _Please god, don’t! I’m trying to come back. I’m…_

*

“...going to fall off, you crazy arsehole!” she shrieks at the horse. 

It takes no heed and only gallops faster, racing its own shadow across the field, straight towards the fence that divides the farmland from a riotous jungle that was not there two seconds ago. 

“Don’t let go,” is all the horse says before it leaps into the air and…

*

“...again, goddammit. We stop when I say so.”

There is a flicker of amusement in her mind, sardonic and a little awed as well. Even now, Ben is a bossy bastard. 

She struggles to speak and wonders if she is even really here, or if she might just be a ghost in the air, sightless and unknown. The only problem with this theory is she is beginning to feel sensations again. Pain returns first, sharp and heady, clawing its way through her hip and leg. She can feel wetness on her skin, can feel the cool draft of the air vents blowing down from the ceiling. The heart monitors are not beeping anymore; instead, an eerie and all too familiar flatline resounds across the small kitchen. 

But despite all this, when BB8 tells Ben that they should stop now, that there isn’t any hope, he is there above her. She can’t open her eyes yet, but she hears him. Hears the quiet pleading in his voice and pauses to wonder that it is an Alpha that is trying to save her life. A sworn enemy that will not give up on her. 

And then, she fights a little harder. Grabbing and pulling and _battling_ her way back to this world. 

“One more time,” Ben says and her fingers move, just a little. Twitching with renewed warmth and life. 

Before the next charge comes, she…

*

...can see the crevice just ahead. It’s a deep, mottled crack in the earth and far too wide for them to have any hope of making it across. 

“We’ll make it,” the horse answers her out loud and she recognizes its voice all of a sudden. 

“Ben?” she murmurs, but her mouth doesn’t really want to work anymore. The pain is funneling back into this world too, into this place this isn’t quite a dream and that isn’t quite real either. “How… how are you here?”

“I’m not and neither are you.”

This is all the horse says to her before it launches off the side of the crevice, soaring through the heated jungle air with her clinging to its back. Only, when they meet the other side, she does not land. 

It’s like falling in reverse, like flying without the aid of wings. The horse disappears and when she collides, it is not with the ground, or the fenrirs, or anything else. She…

*

...gasps for air, her eyes flying open and her heart stuttering into a regular rhythm. There is movement all around her, things are beeping loudly and she flinches from these jarring sounds, moaning when the pain cascades into a squeezing fist. 

“Ben?” she whimpers. Tears seep out between her eyelids and she reaches out with a trembling hand, blindly reaching at her side. “Did we… make it?”

Fingers close over hers, grasping gently. 

“Don’t try to talk. Just breathe. Nice and even, just like that.” 

The kitchen lights are blinding, but then a dark form comes into view and as she blinks at it, the features slide into place and she starts weeping. Her limbs are anchored by unseen weights, making her movements weak and useless, but he’s there anyways. He looks away from her and even through the pain coating the world in hazy prisms, she can see how pale he is. His hands and arms are covered in blood, and she knows it isn’t his own. 

She shouldn’t be alive. She _wasn’t_ alive. But somehow, she is, as impossible as that should be. 

“The ‘orse,” she rasps, trying to get his attention again. He reaches for something just out of her vision and then her leg is shifting, making her moan in pain. 

“Shh.” He comes back and cool, wetness touches her cheek. He brushes it across her skin and murmurs when she tries to shift away from whatever is tugging on her leg. “Don’t move, Rey. We’re stitching you up.”

“Ben...” Consciousness is slipping away from her again but this time she is not afraid. She evaded Death today and though there will be many days ahead to wonder just _how_ she did that, she knows now that she can sleep in safety. “Ben… the horse… it ‘as you…”

“It’s okay,” he whispers and now he’s looking right at her, his eyes soft and brown. “You’re safe now. It’s okay.”

Rey drifts off and does not awake again for a long time. 

*

It might be the same night, or the next. Rey isn’t sure. 

She blinks in the dark and realizes she is in her bed now. One of the kitchen chairs is pulled up next to her and the large form that is Ben is folded into it. He has a tablet in his hand and doesn’t notice that she has woken up. He looks tired, she thinks, but she is barely cognizant of this fact. Strong painkillers pump through her system as bones, ligaments and tissue begin the slow business of healing. 

She remembers all of it - all except the moment when the fenrirs attacked her. But that might be okay. She does not want to know what it felt like to almost have her leg torn off. The rest of it though… her brain is still too fried from morphine and exhaustion to make sense of it now. Later, she thinks. Later she can try to riddle out how it is that she is even alive. 

Rey slowly turns her head to the side. 

Ben sits close enough that she can reach him. So she does, her cool fingertips closing over the warmth of his wrist. She can blame it on the drugs, later. When she is capable of things like speech and coherency. Really, though, she knows better. Comfort is fleeting. She never really had any as a child, and though she might not have any right to it now, she needs it more than air. 

Ben looks up with a sharp exhale, dark eyes meeting hers, and when her fingers slide down to his own, he does not pull away. 

She falls asleep again, their hands clasped as the heart monitors serenely beep away. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay - so a LOT happens here. 
> 
> I really wanted this chapter to take you on a journey through the pain, trauma and ultimately the near-death experience Rey endures. This non-linear narrative was a joy to write and I hope it's not (too) confusing. 
> 
> The thing that Rey sees in the tree will be addressed in the next chapter, along with what she just went through - because obviously people don't just will themselves back to life. We'll also get an explanation from Ben as to why he has been sneaking out to the hatch. Much to come, along with a little more clarity on the crazy things that have been happening to our heroes. 
> 
> Thanks, as always, for reading. Your feedback and comments are so inspiring and really keep me going <3


	15. Fallen Idols

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What is it?” she demands breathlessly. “Are the fenrirs back?”
> 
> “No,” he grunts and then he’s moving rapidly towards the front door. She can now hear BB8 beeping from outside and when Ben throws the door open, she struggles to look past him. 
> 
> Then she sees it. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ooooookay I lied a little. We don't get to the hows and whys of Rey surviving the fenrir attack, but we will next chapter. This chap would have been waaaaaay too long if I got into that and I wanted to spend enough time on Rey and Ben here. 
> 
> Hope ya'll enjoy <3
> 
> P.S. Don't fret about Rey's leg too much, I have a feeling things will work out one way or another ;)

Warmth. Something sweet. Creamy. Comforting. 

She thinks of birch trees and crinkly bark. She thinks of birthday candles and frosting in a can. Her mother’s fingers in her hair, combing away baby-fine locks. Swaddled and safe, like in the womb. 

Rey opens her eyes to pale morning light. She is surrounded by blankets and she quickly finds the comparison to the womb is not all that far off. There are at least two blankets over her body and several more folded around her in a cushioning oval. It takes great effort for her to withdraw her arms from this sea of lulling plushness and all she can reason with in her bemused state is that Ben, or even BB8, did this to prevent her from rolling off the bed. 

Which doesn’t make a lot of sense. The bed is a queen size and she’s been placed in the centre. She’s been on so much morphine, the simple act of pushing some of the blankets off her feels like trying to swim through tar. 

But Rey is not in a mystery solving state of mind right now, so she overlooks it. 

Her eyelids feel heavy, like the mere act of opening them is akin to pushing boulders uphill. She pushes through it, fighting to stay awake. She has been sleeping for a long time and though the drugs are tempting her back to blissful unconsciousness, she will not heed their siren song. Not until she’s had a glass of water and finds out exactly what happened last night. 

Or was it two nights ago? Three?

She turns to see the chair is unoccupied beside her bed. The door is only open a sliver and she cannot see into the hallway to know if Ben and BB are in the shelter or outside. She leans up a little, trying to peek anyway and immediately regrets it. 

Her leg and hip shift and she bites back a hoarse cry, her face tightening up into lines of pain. It’s all coming back to her in rapid shutter clicks. Looking for Ben outside, discovering the fenrirs, being chased into the jungle…

And dying. She remembers that part too. The horse that was not a horse, the forest and the fenrirs, and… coming back. She blinks at the ceiling and decides she is going to get out of this bed. Right now. Her brain is practically buzzing with the need for knowledge. 

It’s a great idea, really, until she moves. 

This time, Rey barely bites back a scream when she tries to pull her legs up. Okay. Okay, she needs to slow down a little. Beads of sweat pop out of her temples as she sags back into place. She’s really thirsty. She might have to pee too, but she’s too sore to tell. She doesn’t yet understand how bad her injuries are and with willful stubbornness, she presses her hands into the mattress and starts dragging herself into a sitting position again. The movement brings on a fresh bout of pain, but she grits her teeth through it, sweating and groaning under her breath. 

After minutes of quiet struggle, she only ends up partially sitting up, the pillows digging into her back and her face red from pain and exertion. She thinks it might be the drugs that are making movement so difficult. She knows she’s hurt, but she can still feel her legs and move a little so she’s not paralyzed. 

Rey collapses back into the pillows and blankets, and closes her eyes, more exhausted than she was before. But she can’t go back to sleep yet. She needs water. Desperately. And the toilet. And to wash the blood and dirt off her skin. 

She raises her hand to grip the nightstand beside her and it is then that she notices an IV sticking out of her. She looks at it stupidly and then down herself where she can see several heart monitors on her arms and chest. Logically, she knew she was injured. She knew that they had to use the paddles on her because she can feel where they burned her skin and she can remember all too well the sensation of returning to herself after almost dying. 

But it’s then and only then that Rey realizes she might be in far worse shape than she previously thought. 

Instead of grasping the nightstand, she lays back down, wincing at even this small motion. She gazes down her body to where her legs are still covered by the blankets. Beside her, the heart monitors pick up in tempo and her stomach closes in a cold fist of dread. 

She doesn’t want to look. 

Rey pulls in a stuttered breath and then flips the blankets off her legs in one quick movement. There isn’t much to see beyond all the bandages. Her left leg and hip are swollen - that much she can easily tell. The limb is still attached, which is good, but she has no idea when - or _if_ \- she will be able to use it again. 

She wants to know how bad it is as much as she _doesn’t_ want to know. She has always been active, always been quick on her feet. She’s not a body-builder or anything like that, but she enjoyed walking across the bunker at night, when no one else was around. Not that there is anywhere much to walk around here that is safe, but she can’t imagine not being able to use her legs. 

They still have a whole compound to build. The perimeter is barely started. There are still things out there that want to kill them and if she can’t even fucking _walk…_

Rey doesn’t realize she is hyperventilating until the monitors start going crazy. 

Footsteps suddenly pound down the hall and when the door flies open, Rey barely notices. The scent of food wafts in - he must have been cooking something in the kitchen - but that goes unnoticed too. 

Her leg. Her fucking _leg_. What if she never walks again?

“Whoa, hey. Calm down Rey.”

She looks up in time to see Ben cross the room and go to her bedside, not quite touching her but hovering inches away. She tries to sit up to get a better look at her legs, but he gently pushes her back down with little effort at all. 

“Stop it - you’ll tear the stitches.”

“But I _need_ to -”

“You need to breathe. Just - _hey_ \- relax, _Noomaya_. You’re going to make yourself pass out.”

Rey doesn’t listen. She needs to know. She needs to see it. But he’s either too strong, or she’s too damned weak and she quickly tires herself out from trying to push his hand off her. 

“Just let me see it.”

“No.”

“But I -”

“ _No_ ,” Ben says more forcefully and grunts when she tries to reach for the bandages. He grabs her arm and pushes her gently into the pillows, arranging the blankets around her in a way that keeps her arms by her sides. Black spots dance in her vision and he’s right; she’s having a full blown panic attack and she’s going to pass out again, but it doesn’t matter because her _leg_ …

“Look at me,” Ben murmurs to her and sighs when she refuses. His fingertips are warm when he tilts her chin towards him and she expects him to be aggravated and angry, but he only looks faintly annoyed. She moans in pain when she tries to untangle her arms but he holds fast to her jaw, his grasp light but firm. “Rey - _stop_. You’re okay… just take a few breaths.”

She goes to speak but he shakes his head at her. 

“Breathe, _Noomaya_. No - slow down. It’s just the drugs making you loopy.”

It’s not just the drugs, but she listens to him anyways, because as soon as she pulls in a deep breath, she starts to feel a little better. The panic is still there, waiting in the wings like a starved fenrir, but there is something about his eyes that pulls her in and makes it a little easier to catch her breath. 

“Good. That’s better.” His voice is almost soft and as her chest rises and falls with steadier breaths, he looks away to her vitals and seems to relax a little himself. 

“How bad is it?’ she croaks and if there are tears blurring her eyes, she feigns ignorance. 

His eyes flit to hers and then quickly look away. The panic lurches to the forefront again, sharp and heady. 

“You should try to drink some water -”

“ _Ben_ ,” she says raggedly, her hand skittering out to grip his tightly. He finally looks her in the eye and she tries to decipher the expression on his face, but the room feels like it’s closing in on her and she _needstoknowrightnow_. 

He seems to hesitate before he sits in the chair beside her, his fingers closing over hers as he holds her gaze. He reaches over her without breaking eye contact and adjusts the blankets back over her legs. When she goes to push them off again, he snatches her other hand and folds them both together on her stomach. He leaves his hand over them, like she might try to shove her blanket off again. His skin is hot as always and though she is still frantic to know what has happened to her, the strange calm of his regard stills her to place once more. 

Just enough that she can actually listen to what he tells her. 

“The droid thinks it can construct a wheelchair for you,” Rey barely pulls in a choked breath before he quietly adds, “at least that’s what I think it said.”

The world is falling away from her and the only thing keeping her here is his warm hand on her skin. 

“I personally think a crutch would be better. You’ll have more mobility with it and… my uncle lost a leg in the war. He got along fine with that-”

“I… can’t use my leg.”

Ben looks at her head on and she knows he won’t sugarcoat this for her. He will tell her the brutal and honest truth because that is the only way he knows. 

“You have three fractures to your femur. Your left pelvis is broken. The meds will speed the healing process along but...”

“But?” she all but croaks. 

He doesn’t let go of her hands, maybe to brace her, or maybe for the same reason she reached out for him in the night. Lending comfort where there is little to be had. 

“It’s what happened to the tissue and muscles that caused the most damage. They nearly ripped your leg off and they would have if not for…” He trails off here and shakes his head as though to clear it. “We’ll talk about that part later. Just - you got pretty fucked up. The fact that you’re not -”

“Will I be able to walk again?”

“Rey -”

“Just tell me.”

“You just woke up. This isn’t -”

“I have a right to know.”

“No.” She flinches when he says it and he seems to as well because he can no longer meet her eyes. “Probably not.”

It still hurts, worse than the pain in her hip and leg, worse than getting her shoulder ripped out of its socket. Worse than crashing on this planet and losing everything. 

But she doesn’t allow herself to burst into tears. 

“I don’t accept that.”

Ben stares at her like she’s grown a second head.

She feels her face grow hot. With anger, with bitterness, with all the things that have piled up on her in the last month. She wants to tear this room apart but she can barely lift up her head. She clutches on to her fury instead of the blistering despair threatening to overrun her. If she lets it, it will tear her apart and she can’t afford that. Not after nearly falling over the brink and then coming back again. 

“You almost - look, it was touch and go for a while there. You need to _rest_. We can talk about this later -”

“I will not accept that. I _won’t_ ,” she says vehemently and he must see that she means it because his expression closes off. “So, what about the perimeter? When do we -”

“Me and the buckle of bolts will handle it,” Ben cuts in. He ignores her angry sputtering and nods towards the window where BB is presumably outside. “The droid is going to move its - power converter? charging port? - whatever the fuck you call it, over here. It will guard the door at night in case those things come back.”

Rey opens her mouth to protest further, but then he squeezes her hands, stopping her from speech. 

“We’ll handle it,” he repeats and his voice has taken on a strange depth she has never heard from him before. It’s almost - rumbly in a way? “Just - rest, okay? You almost died.”

She goes to correct him, to tell him that there was no _almost_ and that she did in fact die, but he’s already standing up and going out to the kitchen to get her a glass of water. As she lies in the bed and stares dejectedly at the ceiling, she is already planning on researching different physio methods for rehabilitating devastated limbs. 

She is going to walk again if it’s the last thing she does. 

*

After Rey manages to drink a cup of water, she stares down at the empty glass like it will somehow give her the ability to walk again. She would like for Ben to leave. She would like to rip the walls down and release some of the fire inside her, but most of all she would like a good cry and then to go back to sleep. 

But she really needs to pee. 

God, how is she supposed to ask him to bring her to the bathroom? And will she have to continue to do so for the foreseeable future? It’s fucking humiliating and she almost doesn’t ask at all because she would rather rip her stitches open and crawl across the shelter than have to force the words out. 

Ben seems to sense her hesitance, even if he doesn’t know what it is regarding, and he shifts uncomfortably on his feet. 

“Are you hun -”

“I need to go to the -”

They both stop talking at the same time, but it’s Rey who looks away this time. 

She thinks he might leave and get BB8 to do it instead. She can only imagine he’s annoyed enough about having to look after her for the last two days, let alone having to carry her to the washroom. She doesn’t picture Alphas as the caring types, but then again, he hasn’t complained. 

Yet, anyways. 

Instead, he just stands there, staring at her. She has a childish temptation to throw the covers over her head in all her embarrassment. 

He clears his throat. “You, uh…” She looks up at him with a confused frown when he shifts on his feet before gesturing towards her legs. “You bled all over your clothes.”

She figured as much when she saw she wasn’t wearing her own shirt. It’s one of Ben’s - or _Matt’s_ really. Even though the shirt is likely way too small for him, she’s practically swimming in it. Not that she is about to complain or anything. 

“Okay,” she says because she doesn’t know what that has to do with her going to the bathroom. 

Then, she notices a faint pinkness to Ben’s cheeks and her confusion deepens.

“The droid dressed you after but you had too many bandages on your hip and legs.”

“... alright?”

He releases an aggravated sigh and looks pointedly away from her. “That’s why you don’t have pants on.”

Oh. _Oh_. Oh god, as if things could not be any more mortifying. Rey blushes bright red and makes an odd sound in her throat. That means he likely saw - well - _everything._

“That’s - I -” She has no idea what to say right now. He probably vomited all over the place afterwards. It’s not like she’s had time to shave her bits or anything. Not that she _cares_ what he thinks but it’s still humiliating and horrible and oh god, will the indignities ever end?

“Jesus, it’s not like I lingered or anything,” he snaps a tad crossly. 

Rey sputters and when she sees how peeved he looks, she backpedals. 

“No - no. I know that. Obviously.” He looks distinctly disgruntled, but her bladder has grown hot now and she really needs to get to the bathroom before something even more embarrassing happens. “Could you - unless you preferred BB8 doing it - I… really need to go.”

Ben’s expression clears and he glances out her bedroom door before surprising her and approaching her bed. Before she can push the blankets away, he does it for her, with far more care than she would have. He's almost fussy, the way he carefully places them to the side and she's reminded of the way he folds his laundry. She notes this strange behaviour, though she’s much more concerned with getting to the toilet right now than anything else. 

He pauses above her, his tone oddly soft. “This will hurt.”

Rey nods only once. “I know.”

She has to give him credit. He picks her up as carefully as he can, pausing when she hisses in pain and letting her sort of rest against his chest. He’s toasty warm when he lifts her up and her face is right near one of his scent glands. She realizes that is what she smelled when she first woke up. 

Birch trees, birthday cake and vanilla. That scent was all over the blankets. 

*

In the morning, BB8 visits her and offers to wash her hair for her. While the gesture is kind, the experience is less than stellar when the droid accidentally rips a few of her hairs out with its metallic joints. They’re in the kitchen and Rey has been placed on a padded chair, her hair in the sink and a blanket around her body to conceal her lower half. She managed to change her underwear by herself with much painful finagling and a pinch of Kenobi stubbornness. 

She hopes to convince them to take her off the morphine today. She doesn’t want to become dependent on it; the pain will be terrible - hell, it already is - but she will have to get used to it. 

Then, she can figure out how to walk again. 

“Ouch!”

ϕ _Sorry Madam Rey. This is not going as well as I had hoped - ah, Master Ben is here._ ϕ

And sure enough, Ben comes stomping into the house, his shirt sticky with sweat and his hair as wild as ever. Rey primly fixes the blanket around herself, even though he’s already seen everything apparently. 

She’s still not quite over it. 

Then, Ben notices them and does a double take before glowering. She freezes in the chair and nearly rolls her eyes because she really doesn't have the energy for a pissed off Alpha right now. She hasn’t seen him this angry for a long time and though she isn’t afraid of him anymore, a curious flutter goes through her all the same. 

“Are you fucking kidding me?” he snarls and - yep - his eyes have turned green. “She should be in bed right now!”

“Okay, calm down,” Rey says but Ben is already speaking over her like she isn’t even here. 

“Her leg is covered in stitches and you’re playing salon over here!” He slams his gloves down on the kitchen table and BB makes a few sullen bleeps at him. “She shouldn’t be moved right now -”

“ _\- she_ is fine,” Rey snaps. He glares at her and she returns the look in kind. “My hair was dirty and I asked BB to help me. It’s really not - _shit_!”

She flinches when BB8 gets caught in another knot in her hair, nearly losing her balance and falling out of the chair. She can already feel the agony that will accompany her spill and so it’s a great shock when she _doesn’t_ fall to the floor. Because, quite suddenly, Ben has somehow managed to cross the room so quickly he’s a blur. Then his hand is on her shoulder, steadying her, and her heart flies into her throat from his close proximity. 

But he isn’t even looking at her. 

His glare is positively hide-melting when BB8 beeps apologetically. 

ϕ _Oh dear - I’m so sorry! Are you alright?_ ϕ

“It’s fine,” she says weakly. 

“Jesus Christ, get out of the way,” Ben growls and the droid backs away from him with shrill indignation. 

ϕ _Is that language really necessary?_ ϕ BB squawks and Ben most intuit some of its meaning because he growls again. 

“Move it. Now.”

Rey sputters, one part in anger over his treatment of BB, but also in indignation because is he really going to _wash her hair?_ Before she can think to protest, or say anything really, BB begins angrily admonishing Ben in what she assumes is only one of many arguments between them. 

ϕ _You are unbearably rude, Master Ben. Perhaps you should -_ ϕ

Ben makes a threatening sound in his chest, snatching the bottle of shampoo out of the droid’s grasp and elbowing it out of the way. 

“Go outside and finish the fence before you rip her fucking scalp off.”

“BB, you don’t have to... leave...” Rey trails off when the droid whirls out the front door in a series of harassed beeps and disappears outside. “Great. You’ve hurt its feelings.”

Ben scoffs but she can’t see his face anymore from this angle. 

“It’s a machine. It doesn’t have feelings.”

“Yes it does. BB was programmed to be a social droid -”

“- playing the world’s smallest violin -”

“- but I guess at least you’re talking to it at all.” He doesn’t say anything to this and she sighs. “Are you going to tell me what happened the other night with the fenrirs?”

She knows they must either be dead or have run off, she just doesn’t understand _how_. There is a flicker of a memory, right before the fenrirs attacked her. That black blur jumping through the trees… She wonders if it was the same thing Ben saw in the jungle before and she thinks of the twigs again. 

“Are you going to shut up and let me do this?” He still sounds pissed off, but some of his ire must have cooled off because he isn’t hauling her back to her bed. “You shouldn’t be sitting on a chair like that with your stitches. The _machine_ should know that better than anyone.”

“It’s not BB’s fault,” Rey says with far more exhaustion than she means to. “I couldn’t stand lying in that bed like this any longer. I just wanted my hair cleaned.”

She looks up at the ceiling and folds her hands together under the blanket, wincing the weight of the thick bandages on her hip and thigh. 

Ben goes still beside her - she can’t see him but she feels it like a disturbance in the air. 

“Lean your head back a little more,” is all he says and when his fingers touch down on her wet scalp, she pushes out a sharp breath. 

It’s… nice. Awkward as hell and uncomfortable with the pain in her side, but he’s surprisingly gentle. It’s been a very long time since anyone has washed her hair for her. Decades, in fact. She wonders if he has done this before; washed another person’s hair with the care and almost _fuss_ as he is doing right now. He is thorough, taking the time to rinse the soap from her hair with the detachable nozzle in the sink. Perhaps he did this for his mother or sister, or even a loved one. 

She has no idea though. She still doesn’t _know_ this person, this abhorrent who should hate her guts and whom she should loathe in turn. But she realizes then, as he wordlessly applies conditioner to her hair and works out the tangles, that she hasn’t thought of him as an abhorrent in quite some time. This realization jars her; that was _all_ she thought of him as before - he and his people - only now things have changed. 

“Are you in pain?” he asks gruffly and she wonders if he finds this weird too. 

“Um, no? I’m fine.”

“You have that constipated look on your face again. Wasn’t sure if it was the pain or because your brain is about to explode.”

Oh, but he’s still an asshole. Rey scowls at him from her precarious perch and tries not to move when he rinses her hair out again. 

“It’s called thinking, Ben. It’s what people do who have at least half a brain.”

He snorts above her and squeezes the water from her hair. He has to lean against her to do this and she can feel his chest rumbling when he speaks. She frowns at the sensation and tries to look anywhere but at him. 

“Glad to see the bitchiness is back. You really must be feeling better.”

“What can I say? You bring out the best in me.” 

Ben makes a sound that is _almost_ a laugh and she tries not to feel too pleased with herself over it. His fingers reach under her head, right near the nape of her neck as he wrings out the water from her hair. Her neck and back break out into pleasant goosebumps that she absolutely ignores. It’s a normal reaction, she has to tell herself. Anyone would react that way to having their hair touched. 

It’s normal. Completely normal. 

“So… have you done this before?” Rey almost winces her strange, squeaky tone, but Ben doesn’t comment on it. 

“What - put up with a snarky Beta that can’t keep out of trouble or -?”

“Wash someone’s hair.”

This might be one of those questions that starts a fight. He was already pissy when he came back inside. She doesn’t know what she hopes to accomplish with this, only that she needs to focus on something else other than his fingers in her hair. 

He tenses up next to her, just as she thought he would, but then he goes back to fussing over a particularly stubborn knot in her hair. She doesn’t understand why he’s bothering. A brush would work better and that’s something she can (probably) do herself. But he keeps at it and she thinks he won’t answer her at all. 

But, as always, he surprises her. 

“My mother has MS. It’s not so bad yet, but there are days when she needs help.”

Every nerve in Rey’s body seems to fire off at the same time. He just… disclosed _very_ personal information. She almost doesn’t remember how to respond to normal things like this because really this is just a simple conversation. They don’t _do_ simple though and she feels rather like she has to relearn social decorum all over again. 

“I’m sorry to hear that.” Rey flounders for a moment before adding, “Well you’re good at it. Cleaning hair, I mean. I thought maybe you were a hair stylist before.”

This time he _does_ laugh and she has to bite back an answering smile. 

“You really thought that?”

“Well, _no._ But the mental image was pretty amusing.” 

She can almost picture it now - Ben, running an underground salon for Alphas. If anyone complained about his work, he would rip their jaws off and display them on the walls like trophies. His staff would all be terrified of him and he would scowl through the ship window at passersby like a quarrelsome old man. 

She breaks into giggles and when she finally meets Ben’s gaze, he’s faintly smiling though she can tell he’s trying to look annoyed instead. It feels good to laugh, even though there’s still a hollow pit inside her. Even though she can’t walk and she has to get someone else to wash her hair for her, and it’s all rather maddening but this…

This little slice of levity lightens the burden, just a bit. 

“Keep it up, smart ass,” Ben remarks idly, “and I’ll give you a bowl cut.”

“Try me,” she says cheekily, but her laughter abruptly cuts out when she shifts in her chair. She tries not to whimper at the deep ache in her hip, but he seems to sense her pain anyways. Can he smell her too, as she smells him? Does her pain have a scent, the same way his fear and anger do?

Rey doesn’t know why that seems important and decides not to dwell on the idea of him scenting her. 

“Back to bed I think.” He reaches for her to lift her up, but she raises a hand to stop him. 

“Not yet.”

“ _Rey_ ,” he growls, all traces of mirth gone. 

“We’re going to talk first.”

“Oh we are?” 

“Yes,” she says simply and looks up at him with her wet hair falling over one shoulder. “I’ll go back to bed after but we need to talk about what happened.”

Ben looks down at her for a moment, his jaw shifting before he rolls his eyes. “We can talk in your room just as well as out here.”

“I’ve been in bed for long enough,” she counters and there might be some desperation to her tone now that wasn’t there before, “just… can we sit in here for a bit?”

His jaw shifts some more before he releases an aggravated sigh. “Fine. But I don’t want to hear you bitching later about how sore you are.”

“Pinkie swear?” She says, smiling a little. 

He looks away, but not before she catches the smallest quirk to his lips. 

“You’re ridiculous.”

“Right back at you.”

*

“...they had us surrounded at the hatch. I tried shooting them but there were too many.”

“I know… that’s how I found you, actually. I knew you were screwed up there so -”

“- you idiotically lured them away.”

Ben doesn’t look particularly pleased with her at the moment and she can’t say she blames him. It was stupid. Very stupid. But it was the only option she could think of at the time. 

They sit at the island. Ben didn’t bother moving her to a different chair; he just picked her up, chair and all, and put her at the table - much to her sputtering surprise. They’re picking at some soup but he doesn’t eat much. She notes his cuisine preferences again, though this time she thinks his lack of appetite might have more to do with what they’re talking about. 

“Well, anyways,” Rey says, trying to steer them away from a potential fight. “I remember everything except what happened after the fenrirs got to me. There was this thing in the trees I think but -”

Ben suddenly leans across the table, his eyes intently fixed on her. She stops talking and stares back at him, tilting her head in question. 

“You saw it?”

“Yes?” she replies slowly. “I mean, I couldn’t make out much besides a black, furry shape. It was too dark to see any features but -”

“Did you see what it did to them?”

Rey narrows her eyes at him for the interruption but he isn’t perturbed in the least. There is an avidness to his expression that wasn’t there before and as she replays his words, she forgets about her annoyance entirely. 

“What do you mean ‘what it did to them’?”

“Do you honestly think the droid and I killed all those things?” His brow wrinkles with incredulity but she’s already past that now. “There had to have been at least a dozen of them if not more and now they're all at the bottom of the fucking mountain.”

“Are you saying… that _thing_ killed them? That it _saved_ me?”

“Well, I wouldn’t go that far. Your leg was barely hanging on by a thread at that point -” He cuts himself off when she goes a little green at his description and leans back in his chair with a small puff of air. “They had already gotten to you at that point. Maybe that thing wanted you for itself. They could have been fighting over you.”

“Well, if we’re going by that logic, then I _should_ have been killed at that point. Either by it or by the fenrirs. But if it was just my leg that was injured then it stopped them. It must have.”

Her cheeks are coloured pink with excitement the more she thinks about it. That thing - whatever it was - could be a potential ally and they could really use some of those right now. 

Ben notes her expression and scowls. 

“I don’t know why you’re so fixated on these things being friendly. We have no idea what they are or what they want. So far everything else has either outright attacked us, drugged us, and tried to eat us.”

“How long until you found me in the jungle?” Rey asks suddenly. 

He regards her in silence for a long moment and when she goes to ask again, he practically snarls his answer. 

“Ten minutes. Maybe fifteen.”

Rey sits back in her chair (grimacing from even this subtle motion) but the pain does nothing to dispel this small victory. “Then it couldn’t have been there to kill me. Come on Ben, think about it! The twig messages -”

“- which we still don’t know the meaning of -”

“- and that storm in the jungle and the fenrirs the first time they came for us. They have been warning us this entire time -”

“- can’t know that -”

“I have a good feeling about it!”

“Really.” He could not sound more scathing if he tried. 

“Yes! This doesn’t feel aggressive to me. Maybe -”

“Right, your _feelings_ ,” Ben says and she realizes too late that he is furious. His eyes glint green at her and his scent changes within the blink of an eye. “Your _feelings_ also compelled you to make a pack of fenrirs chase you across the mountain and practically tear your leg off. We had to sow you back together like fucking Humpty Dumpty and restart your heart _twice_ , so forgive me if I don’t trust your instincts.”

“Excuse me - I saved your bloody life!”

“ _And nearly killed yourself in the process_!” he shouts so loudly, the pots rattle with it. 

Rey flushes and though she is too weak to be having this fight right now, her anger comes soaring back to the forefront. 

“I know the cost of my decision all too well. I’m the one who can’t walk, remember?” He growls under his breath, but when she slams her fist on the table his shoot back to hers, widening a fraction. “Don’t do that! I’m not some Omega you can intimidate with your stupid growling.”

He leans forward, planting both hands on the table to sneer at her. “You’re only proving - once again - that you have no _fucking_ idea what you’re talking about.”

“Right and I should just apologize for trying to save your life! _Again_ \- might I add!” He pushes away from the table with a disgusted scowl but before he can leave, she keeps going. Though a small part of her feels guilty for yelling at him after all the care he has given her, it feels good to vent some of the anger and agonizing misery she feels. “What were you doing in there by the way?”

“What are you on about -?”

“The hatch. Why were you in the hatch?” She nods at his blank look like he just gave everything away. “Yes, you want to talk about _stupid?_ I know you’ve been going in there for the last couple of days, even though you were the one who said we shouldn’t go out at night.”

“That fucking droid,” he says in a dangerously low voice. “What - do you have it spying on me?”

Rey blushes but doesn’t let him sidetrack her. 

“Of course not. BB told me you were going in there every night and found that behaviour odd because we had already moved all the supplies over here. _Besides_ ,” she says when he shows all signs of interrupting, “why _would_ you go over there?”

Suddenly, Ben launches up from his seat, standing over her with a twisted snarl. 

“It’s none of your fucking business and you’d do well -”

“ _No_!” she snaps at him, yelling just as loudly. She struggles in her seat, forgetting that she can’t do things like standing anymore. When she growls in pain, the anger on Ben’s face dissolves just a little. But she’s too far gone to care right now. She slams her hand on the table again, both in frustration with herself and incorrigible Alpha standing before her. “You don’t get to do that this time! I’ve been trying to give you space and privacy, but you went out there anyways and then you got into trouble. So I did the only thing I could think of to _save - your - life_! You don’t get to tell me that it’s none of my -”

“ _My suppressants_!” Ben suddenly roars over her. 

Rey falters, her cheeks red and her heart slamming in her chest. His… _what?_

He turns away from her and hurls his plate at the wall. Luckily, all their plates are aluminum so nothing breaks, but he does leave a small dent in the opposite wall. 

Rey bears this in silence and simply blinks at him in rude shock. His back is to her now and when he pulls in a deep, shaky breath, she can only watch in befuddlement as the muscles in his back expand and retract like that of a lion’s. 

“What…” Her voice doesn’t come out right the first time and so she tries again. “What are suppressants?”

Ben turns back to her in jerky movements. 

“They were in my pack when we boarded your shuttle. I thought I threw my bag in there before I confronted you in the cockpit but I haven’t been able to find them.” 

He says this almost robotically, which is such a drastic change from his previous tone, that she almost can’t reconcile it. 

“Okay. But -”

“They’re for my reproductive cycle.” Dull, flat, almost lifeless the way he says it and she realizes it’s because he expects her to be aghast by this information. 

But she still doesn’t understand. 

“Do they… _control_ it?” She also sounds different. Raspy, probably from screaming at him so loudly. 

“Yes. But they aren’t in there. They must have been on the ship when it...” Ben trails off and drops his hands limply by his sides to glance out the window to the yard outside. 

Rey falters, remembering somewhere in the traumatic memories of when they were sewing her up and trying to keep her alive, that he tried so hard to bring her back when her heart stopped. That he wouldn’t give up, even when BB8 thought it was hopeless. That he likely feels guilty for what happened because he was just trying to find his suppressants. Because of course he wouldn’t ask for her help to do this during the day. He wouldn’t ask for help at all because of what he is and what she is. 

And suddenly, all the fight goes out of her. 

“Alright,” she murmurs. “Well, I didn’t know that… I mean, obviously. I just -”

“Rey,” he says quietly but she isn’t really listening to him. 

“- thought you were sneaking out there for some reason and I don’t blame you for what happened. I think we -”

“ _Rey_ ,” he says sharply and this time she looks up at him. 

His entire body has gone tense and he stares outside, his upper lip curling over his teeth. Her blood turns to ice at the sight, but she can’t see outside from this angle. 

“What is it?” she demands breathlessly. “Are the fenrirs back?”

“No,” he grunts and then he’s moving rapidly towards the front door. She can now hear BB8 beeping from outside and when Ben throws the door open, she struggles to look past him. 

Then she sees it. 

It’s still light enough out that the sky is a hazy shade of light pink and purple. BB8 is positioned by the porch, its blowtorch already out as it makes several low, threatening beeps. Ben growls and snarls like a beast and all the while, Rey gapes at what she sees out there. 

Several creatures are huddled together in a rough circle, looking up at the shelter - the very same as the thing she saw in the trees the other night. She is certain of it. They’re armed with spears and an assortment of other crude looking weapons, but she doesn’t really take this in. One of the creatures towers over the rest, perhaps eight feet tall. It’s eyes are a shocking shade of blue and its fur is dark brown - not black like she thought. This creature looks right past the droid and Ben like they are not even there. 

Right at her. 

Ben growls again and ignores her when she says his name. She wants to stand, desperately, but she’s stuck in her chair. Fear tightens her guts, but it’s lighter than before. Almost tentative. 

“Stay right there,” Ben rumbles at her over his shoulder, but before he can do whatever it is he means to do, the creatures start to move. Rey gasps and he falters by the door, swaying uncertainly on his feet. 

The creatures bend down and drop their weapons on the ground. 


	16. Freely Given

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He is, in many ways, just as beholden to the cry of his instincts as an animal. 
> 
> “Please don’t do anything rash,” she whispers to him. 
> 
> He grunts, which isn’t a satisfactory answer at all, and turns back to the porch, where he makes an obvious show of taking his gun out of his belt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Progress! Woot! 
> 
> Some answers to some questions, some Alpha sass and a pinch of awkward flirting! And some angst because these kids have ISSUES.
> 
> Happy Sunday <3

“Ben.”

“Hush.”

“ _Ben._ ”

“Stay here.”

“I’m not just going to -”

He aims Rey a quick, quelling glare that succeeds in silencing her. If he was a cat or dog, his hackles would have risen by now and though she knows he is only reacting this way because of the threat outside, she is once again starkly reminded of his designation. 

He is, in many ways, just as beholden to the cry of his instincts as an animal. 

“Please don’t do anything rash,” she whispers to him. 

He grunts, which isn’t a satisfactory answer at all, and turns back to the porch, where he makes an obvious show of taking his gun out of his belt. She feels a rush of helplessness as she sits in the kitchen; she can’t just shimmy out of her chair and waltz outside with him. Anything could happen and this time she won’t be able to help them. 

She just prays her hunch is right and that they’re not here to hurt anyone. 

Her hands are cold and clammy as she weaves them together on the table. Just beyond the porch, she can make out BB8. The droid swivels its head between Ben and the creatures, its blowtorch poised and ready. Ben’s shoulders are wound so tightly, they’re almost up to his ears; she can hear the low rumblings of his growls from where she sits. 

Out in the clearing, near the center of the perimeter, a few of the smaller creatures skitter backwards at Ben’s threatening growl and emit peculiar, raspy squeaks. They might be younglings. The scientist part of her notes that their fur seems plusher, like that of a baby chick, while the others have curlier and wiry pelts.

If they brought their young ones with them, then maybe they really aren’t here to fight. 

Some of her blanket slips off her lap and she grabs with a trembling hand, covering up her bandages and bare legs. The larger creature - the one she is fairly certain was there that night and killed all the fenrirs - sees her do this from where it is standing out in the dirt. 

It sniffs and then takes a slow step forward. 

Ben raises his gun immediately and the sound he makes is far less like a growl and much more like the roar of a pissed-off bear. The larger creature halts immediately, but it doesn’t seem overly worried about the gun either. It blinks up at Ben and tilts its head in a gesture that is a little too human with curiosity. In contrast, the smaller creatures huddle together and cower behind their taller counterparts, peeking out in a gesture that Rey would have found adorably petrified at any other time. 

Right now, she can barely breathe. 

She curses herself for not being able to move. Ben is about to do something stupid - she can feel it in the air, can taste it in the bitterness of his scent. If she could see his face right now, his eyes would be bright green, a colour she has now come to associate with danger. 

Then, the big creature turns back to the others and emits a few trilling grunts and rumbling barks. One of the others responds in kind and then takes out a small pouch. It hands it to their leader, who turns back to the porch with another low grunt. 

Ben disengages the safety of his gun. 

Although that click is quiet, Rey feels it all the way in her bones. When the big one turns back to him, it is with what sounds very much like an irritated huff. It tosses the pouch on the ground between them and makes no move to come closer. 

ϕ _Orders, Master Ben?_ ϕ BB8 beeps with caution, but it is Rey who answers the droid. 

“Don’t do anything,” she calls softly from inside. “I don’t think they mean any harm.”

BB8 swivels back to her but Ben is speaking before it can reply. 

“ _Shut up._ ”

“If you would let me talk to them -”

“No fucking way.” He sounds furious at just the prospect of that even though he doesn’t take his eyes off the creatures. 

The large one tilts its head again and when it grunts this time, she knows it is addressing Ben now. 

He stiffens, the gun wavering in his grasp. 

The creature grunts again, a little more urgently, then points at the pouch and then directly at Rey. She sits up straighter, looking down at the pouch and then back at the creature. Is it… for her? Her gaze flits to the right when she detects the others shifting around and she sees twigs in their paws, wrapped in white and beige cloth. They’re arranging them on the ground, roughly fifteen feet away from the pouch, and when they’re done, they stand back and bark at each other quietly. 

Well, that solves the mystery of the twigs at least. 

Finally, the largest of them raises a paw in a gentle sweeping motion and then taps its chest three times. Ben rears back a little and though he doesn’t quite lower the gun, there is a shift to his demeanor.

Then, without fuss or further fanfare, the creatures turn to leave, their gait long and ambling, as they cross between the partially completed perimeter and disappear into the jungle. 

Rey doesn’t realize she has been holding her breath until she releases it, quivering with a blend of anxiety and cautious hope. She was _right_. Unless they’re playing some kind of long game, they aren’t here to hurt them. Their motives are still unclear of course, but if Ben could just let her attempt communication…

Her gaze cuts to him then. He hasn’t moved from his spot on the porch, not even when BB8 rolls anxiously on the ground next to him. 

“Ben,” she murmurs, her tone curious and soft. “You can lower the gun now. They’re gone.”

He doesn’t quite relax, but her voice (whether it’s the gentle tone she used, or the fact that she said his name) seems to break the spell. He shifts on the spot, but when BB8 goes to roll over to investigate the creatures’ leavings, he tenses up again. 

“Don’t touch it!” 

BB turns back to him, rocking back and forth on its wheeled joints like an anxious puppy. 

ϕ _Do you not want to see what they have left us, Master Ben?_ ϕ

He doesn’t reply, of course, because he doesn’t understand what the droid is saying. Instead, he shoulders past BB, stepping down the porch and eyeing the pouch with ill-concealed suspicion. She can see his face now that he has turned back towards the shelter. He’s pale, just like he was the night they were attacked by the fenrirs. 

At least she wasn't the only one scared shitless. 

“Ben - I want to see it!” she calls to him from inside. 

He mutters something she cannot hear and cautiously steps closer to it, his broad chest expanding with deep breaths. He must be _smelling_ it. Is there food inside, she wonders. Or something else?

Rey leans forward in her seat to get a better look and immediately regrets it. 

Pain lances up her side, from her thigh all the way up to her ribs. It’s worse in her pelvis, flaring brightly like there are live wires going off in her bones. The pain medication has almost completely worn off now and she has to bite back another moan of pain when her hip starts throbbing. 

“ _Shit_ ,” she hisses. She grips the edge of the table hard enough that her nails screech against the metal. The world slips away for one potent second and she finds then that she is fighting less to pay attention to what is happening outside and more not to pass out. 

Voices drift to her through the anguish of her injuries and when she tentatively opens her eyes, she is still grasping the table. That’s good. At least she isn’t on the floor. 

“...could have been explosives in this, you metallic idiot.”

ϕ _I am equipped with thermal scanners, Master Ben. There was no risk -_ ϕ

“I. Do not. Speak. _Basic_ ,” he growls back at the droid and even though she is in great pain, she rolls her eyes at his gruff tone. 

Rey realizes she must have greyed out for a second there because BB8 and Ben appear to be in mid-conversation. 

ϕ _Must you always be so rude? I am only providing assistance -_ ϕ

“Go make sure they actually left and haven’t tampered with any of the proximity alerts like last time. I want to know if so much as a fucking may-fly comes up here, got it?”

Rey doesn’t pay attention to what BB8 says, her pain-fogged mind tripping up on what Ben just said. Like… last time? Does that mean something disabled the alerts before? Ben never told her that. 

“I’ll stay with her… no, _you_ go that way. I don’t - just leave the sticks where they are. We’ll take a look at them later.”

BB8 beeps doubtfully and then grows fainter as the droid presumably goes off to make sure the creatures left. 

Rey pushes out a long breath and shoulders a bead of sweat off her temple. The pain is getting worse by the second, like someone is reaching inside her pelvis and grinding her broken bones and joints together. Fighting not to pass out again, she tries to breathe through it; she doesn’t want Ben to know how bad it is - not until she gets a look at the pouch. She doesn’t trust him to not just throw the damn thing away. He is the most untrusting creature she has ever met and though he has good cause to worry, she knows it in her guts that these creatures mean them no harm. 

She is very curious as to why they returned and with an offering no less. 

Ben’s boots thump up the stairs and as he enters the shelter, with the pouch hanging from his gun and held aloft like it’s a snake that’s apt to bite him at any second, she feigns a weak smile. 

“I would say I told you so -”

Ben almost drops the pouch as soon as he steps inside and she belatedly notices that he’s sniffing the air again. 

That he is sniffing _her_. 

“Rey?” he says cautiously. 

“Bring it here, would you?” She thinks if she keeps talking that she can stave away the worst of it and somehow convince him she is fine. 

Her efforts aren’t working all that well, though. 

“ _Rey_ ,” he all but growls, but she hangs on tight to the table and refuses to acknowledge it. 

“And my scanner too, please.”

She might be slipping off her chair now. Just a little. Or the world is starting to tilt sideways. Could be both, at this point. This time, when grey webs dance in her vision, they close in, growing darker by the second. Was it the stress of the situation, she wonders, or just sitting in this chair for too long? She thinks she says his name, like a soft warning, because now she _is_ going to fall and there is nothing she can do to stop it. 

But, like before, Ben becomes a blur of movement and before she can meet the floor, his warm arms wrap around her, catching her in a whirl of birch and vanilla. 

There’s a flare of pain and then everything goes black.

*

Rey is really tired of waking up in this room. 

She is also tired of passing out and pain and not being to move much and the damned fucking _humidity_. Daylight streams through the window and she knows it’s the next day. That’s she’s lost another whole goddamned day. _Again_ Everything is to blame when she peels her eyelids open to her hip and leg on fire and a faintly amused Alpha sitting by her bedside. He regards her with a wry smirk, a cup of steaming coffee in his hand and a tablet in the other. 

She groans and closes her eyes again. 

“Welcome back, _Noomaya_.”

“Shut up,” she mumbles. 

Morphine makes her tongue stick to the roof of her mouth and a strange, intense pressure loom in her temples. She’s drowning in blankets again. They’re folded all around her, though the one on top of her seems to have been folded down at some point. 

Probably because she’s liquifying into a literal puddle of sweat. 

“Well, I _hate_ to say I told you so -”

“ _Stooooop_ ,” she whines, her hands weakly reaching up to rub her pounding temples. “I’m dying.”

He exhales too shortly for it to be anything other than laughter and she cracks one eye open to glare at him sullenly. 

“Not quite. Though if anything is going to kill you, it will be your own stubbornness.”

“Says the most pig-headed man I know.” There is something important she needs to remember right now and she belatedly turns back to him with stilted concern. “What happened with the creatures? Did they leave?”

“Yeah, they’re gone. The droid made sure.”

“And what about the thingy they left?”

“The thingy?” he repeats with an amused arch of his brow. “You mean the pouch?”

“Yes, obviously.” It’s not her fault she isn’t the most articulate. She’s the one who’s injured and hopped up on painkillers. 

“It was filled with river water.” Rey stares at him like he just told her they left them party favours and he huffs out an annoyed sigh. “River water, _Noomaya_. As in the water from the river we spent weeks washing and drinking from. Or are you really that high?”

“God you’re such an arse,” she grumbles crossly. “I just didn’t understand why they would leave us that. And _stop_ calling me that name. I know it’s an insult, I’m not _stupid_.”

Though she might be disproving that point with how thick her voice is with drugs right now.

He grins, like he heard this thought out loud and shrugs at her. “Well, I poured it out. _Noomaya._ ”

God he’s such a fucking child some...times… Rey gives him an aghast look, despite the fog of the morphine. 

“You did not… did you?”

He lets out another annoyed huff. 

“I scanned it first, twit. You’re welcome, by the way.” He points to her scanner, which is now sitting on her nightstand. She only relaxes incrementally, thinking briefly of the entry she has on him in there. He would be absolutely furious with her right now if he did find it on there, even though it’s only really meant to be for her personal notes, so she breathes a little easier knowing he must not have seen it. “I have no idea why they would bring us fucking river water, but hey, at least they didn’t try to kill us.”

“Could be a peace offering.” 

“Uh-huh,” he mutters and she thinks of their argument from yesterday. He seems to be thinking about it as well because his expression has darkened.

“Well, it seems more likely now?” She doesn’t mean for it to come out as a question but she also doesn’t want to revisit their fight. All she can picture in her head was how he screamed at her about his suppressants and how badly she felt for accusing him of doing something nefarious in the hatch. 

“Maybe,” he says after a long pause. “Or _maybe_ it was tainted with poison.”

“You’re always so damned suspicious all the time.”

“And you’re always so gullible,” he replies with a smirk. 

“Arsehole.” 

The word comes out with a bit of a slur and Ben wordlessly reaches over to the monitors to adjust the medication. She watches him do this through bleary eyes and wonders how in the world anyone could _enjoy_ getting high off of morphine. It’s fucking terrible. 

“I don’t want to take it anymore.”

“What, my insatiable charm or -”

“The morphine.”

Ben rolls his eyes like they’ve been arguing over this all night. “That’s not a good idea. Give it a few more days before you start taking off the training wheels.”

Anger, hot and searing, goes through Rey and she knows it’s just because she doesn’t want to be in this bed anymore, but Ben is the only one here to take this out on. 

“Let’s hook you up to enough drugs to tranquillize a horse and see how you like it.”

That came out a lot nastier than she meant it to. Yet when she peers over at Ben with a hint of sheepishness, his expression is inscrutable.

“Look, I -” she begins haltingly, but he grunts and she realizes he is almost smiling. 

“You kept calling me a horse.”

“ _What_?” 

“When we were stitching you up, you kept calling me a horse. Bucky, I think it was?”

Rey blushes and fiddles with a pull in one of the blankets. “Did I?”

She knows very well that she did. 

“Yep.”

She knows what he’s doing right now and she would be more annoyed with him if she was in the right state of mind. But the drugs are making her vague with discomfort and if he’s trying to distract her from her own misery, in his own weird way, then she lets him. Just a little. 

“My parents - they uh - took us to a farm when I was really little.” She keeps tugging at that little pull and for some reason has a hard time looking directly at him. She hears a soft thump and realizes he’s put the tablet down on her nightstand. 

That he’s _listening_ to her. Wonders will never cease. 

“My brother and I,” she clarifies after an awkward pause. “It was a few months before the bombs.”

“In England?”

She looks up at him in faint surprise. On Earth, they haven’t called countries by their names in many years, long before he and Rey were born. The fact that he does is interesting, but she’s too hazy to focus on that right now. 

“Yes. There was this farm near our house, just through a small forest at the back of the property. They took us there one day, in the spring. There was a horse there named Bucky. I only really remember him… most of that day is gone now.”

“I see… I’ve never been told I look like a horse before.” He’s still grinning, in a light and almost mischievous sort of way that she has never seen from him before. 

“I mean, kind of.” She smirks faintly when he scowls at her and drops her hands to her stomach. “It had black hair, like you. And it was massive. A stallion, I think they were called? I would say you’re pretty much built like a stallion.”

His scowl disappears, only to be replaced by a _wicked_ smirk. Her breath catches at the sight of it and at his low teasing tone. 

“ _Really?_ And how would you know that? Did you steal a peek when we were washing in the river, or -?”

“Wha - I didn’t - _excuse me_?” 

It takes a minute for her drug-hazed brain trying to make sense of just _what_ he is insinuating, until he bursts into deep, booming laughter. He throws his head back with it, his coffee spilling on the floor and his cheeks flushing a pretty pink. She’s blushing wildly now and can only _stare_ because she has never seen this man laugh like this before. 

Even if it is at her expense, she can’t help but note that he wears happiness well. The lines of his face soften and he looks five years younger. She almost wants to make him laugh like that again, just to see the other ways it changes him to her. 

“Wow - the look on your face was fucking priceless,” Ben says, his laughter tapering off. 

His grin is almost boyish now and of all ridiculous things, she almost feels _shy_. Because this almost feels like - well - flirting. Which is impossible, of course, considering who they are. She almost has to shake her head to make sure she’s awake and she sticks to her churlishness because she’s never been very good at the whole suave thing. 

“As I said before, arse.” Rey points at him in case he doesn’t know who she’s talking about. But she’s smiling too and when he chews on his cheek before tilting his head at her, she finds that she might feel a little better after all. 

“Hm. It’s weird though.”

“What is?” She leans back into the pillows and goes back to picking at the thread on her blanket when his regard becomes too intense to meet. 

“We…” He trails off and holds his hand over his lap hesitantly before dropping it there. “We used the paddles on you and every time you came back for a moment, it’s like you were talking _to_ that horse. Or to someone.”

Ben shakes his head a little, as though to break away from that odd train of thought, but he goes absolutely still when he finds her staring at him. Her body feels tight with anxiety because she’s already started to doubt herself in the intervening days between when she was attacked and when she woke up in this room, alive when she shouldn’t be. 

She wants to tell him. She _needs_ to talk about it with someone. But what if he laughs in her face? What if he calls her crazy? Or even worse - what if he feels _sorry_ for her and tells her she must have imagined it all because who comes back to life with the help of an imaginary horse?

“I remember that.” That is likely the easiest thing to start with, though she can see with the way he tenses up that it’s going to sound insane no matter how she says this. “It was the strangest thing and I…”

But it’s too hard to get the words out and she almost gives up. 

“You what?” She doesn’t know why he’s murmuring this to her just like she doesn’t know why she hushes her tone as well. 

“I died, Ben. Didn’t I?” When he doesn’t answer right away, she turns to him a little and winces from the pain, but this is too damned important for that. “You said that to me yesterday. You said you had to restart my heart twice.”

“Yes?” His voice is tight and stilted with wariness. 

“I know you did. I know because I was somehow _aware_ during that time. Which doesn’t make any sense - believe me, I know that - but it was like I was jumping between what was happening here and this weird space in my head. Like I could see it all from the outside and that horse was there too. Bucky, or whatever - and he was _helping_ me back.”

Ben shakes his head slowly, his brows wrinkling with apparent confusion. “What are you saying?”

“That I should be dead,” she whispers and to say it out loud terrifies her because it was _so close_. And because it is absolutely true. “I don’t know if it has something to do with this planet, or what else it could be, but I shouldn’t be alive. But I am and I _remember_ everything. I remember you washing my face off with a cloth, I remember BB8 telling you that it was time to stop using the paddles on me but you refused. I remember you calling me that stupid name -”

“How?” Ben interrupts her and though it could just be the morphine playing tricks on her, his cheeks look a little pink. “If what you’re saying is true, then how -”

“I don’t know,” Rey admits. Those are her three least favourite words, but they’re unfortunately the truth as well. 

He seems to chew on this for a moment and she wishes he would tell her if he believes her because that suddenly seems more important than if she is losing her mind or not. Before she can ask him though, BB8 comes zooming down the hall in a series of harried beeps. 

ϕ _Master Ben - Madam Rey - come quick! Those creatures left another pouch outside!_ ϕ

Ben and Rey stare at each other in alarm before he launches out of the chair. 

“Ben,” Rey says and she manages to snatch his wrist before he can sprint out of the room. He turns back to her with an irate growl, but she holds his gaze. “Bring me with you. I want to see it.”

“Rey you just fucking passed out yesterday -”

“Just to see it! Please?” 

He looks from where her hand grips his to the desperate plea in her eyes and releases an aggravated sigh. 

“ _Fine_ ”

“Oh, and don’t forget the scanner.”

“For fuck’s sake. Anything else, your majesty?”

“I’m just being thorough.”

“You’re just driving me mental.”

*

Rey is on the couch rather than one of the kitchen chairs, which is probably safest. She’s still a little loopy from the drugs and she doesn’t want to risk another spill to the floor. The silence is not doing anything for her nerves though as she and Ben stare down at the second pouch the creatures have left for them like it might do a magic trick. 

Or spontaneously combust and burn the house down. 

“We should test it.”

“Shit, I left my chemistry set at home, so…” Rey gives Ben a withering glare, to which he only raises an eyebrow. “Well, what are you going to test it with, genius? We only have that useless fucking scanner, which has told us what exactly?”

Rey cradles the scanner to herself protectively and narrows her eyes at him. “The water inside has the same compounds as the river -”

“ - but the rest is inconclusive.”

“I could drink it? It’s clearly meant for me.” Ben’s growl precedes his angry retort and she rolls her eyes. “I’m obviously kidding.”

“I honestly wouldn’t put it past you.”

“Potentially poisoning myself? I’m not an idiot, Ben.”

“You’ve put yourself in so many dangerous situations, it’s a wonder you’re still alive. Of course I wouldn’t put it past you to drink questionable water gifted to us from aliens.”

She _almost_ tells him that he was the one who tried to steal her spaceship and caused them to crash here in the first place, but she somehow bites her tongue. 

“Just don’t pour it out yet. I’m going to see if BB can get anything else from it.”

“Lovely,” he mutters, shaking his head in vague disgust. 

“Okay, you have to tell me what is up with that.” Ben frowns at her and she raises her eyebrows at him like he’s a moron. “Why do you hate droids so much?”

“Alright, you’ve been out here long enough. Time to get back to bed.” He goes to stand up and she flashes a glare at him. 

“Oh come on, just tell me. I told you about what happened to me when...”

_I almost died and had a potential mental breakdown where a horse saved me from Death._

Ben hovers like that for a moment before settling his weight back on the couch opposite hers. She doesn’t say the rest and his eyes meet hers, dark and inscrutable. He still hasn’t said whether he believes her or not and she has decided not to ask. She doesn’t know if she can handle him saying no. Not right now, not when she is still coming to terms with the fact that she may never be able to walk again. 

He looks away from her to the kitchen, though she suspects he’s not really seeing the island and the chairs around it. Not with that far-off look on his face. 

It’s then that she notices his glands are red. She can see the one on the left side of his throat; it’s clearly inflamed, just like a few weeks ago. 

“How old were you when the bombs dropped?” 

She blinks at him and shuffles under the blanket he threw over her earlier. “Four, I think. Maybe a bit older.”

He doesn’t say anything for a moment. She can hear him swallowing from here. 

“I was twelve.” He notices when her head rears back in surprise and smirks faintly. “We abhorrents age more slowly than Betas.”

“Really?” She might sound a tad too fascinated by this piece of information because his smirk drops and he looks annoyed now.

“I remember quite a bit from before. I remember how we lived in the foothills of the Rockies before everything was destroyed. We were hiding up there with all the other abhorrents about five years before the bombs were launched. Fled up there right after the government gave the order.”

Rey’s heart rate starts to pick up but she doesn’t know why. Maybe it’s because of the way he’s looking at her, almost like he’s looking _through_ her to things she cannot know or understand. To memories and old horrors she can never fully comprehend. 

She stares at him, frowning at the expectant look he gives her. 

“The order?”

“Order 66, it was called. I’m not surprised you don’t know it.” When she shakes her head in agreement - because she _doesn’t_ know it - he nods like he expected nothing less. “Did they have Geonosis droids in England?”

She feels a little numb when she nods her head, like the dread suddenly coating her insides to ice is freezing out her motor functions as well. “They were used as patrols to keep the streets safe. In the bunkers too... they helped us build the spaceships.”

“Patrols? Well, that’s what you were told,” he says in a dangerously soft tone. 

“But -”

“When Premier Palpatine gave the order, those _patrol_ droids went into the mountains and the deserts and any other place the abhorrents were hiding just to stay alive and wiped out over seventy percent of us. And that was years before the bombs fell. Now there is only a handful of us left.”

It can’t be true. Those droids were in the bunkers. They operated the rollers up in engineering and made sure the integrity of the tunnels was maintained. She _worked_ with those droids every day during training. 

“No,” Rey says and it’s not out of disagreement, but sheer disbelief. “That can’t be true.”

The smile Ben fixes her with is cold and almost hateful in its resentment. 

“My uncle lost his leg during that attack. I had to put a tourniquet on him with my fucking belt while my parents tried to save as many of our people as they could. Once the caves started collapsing on top of us they had to give up because we would have been dead too. My friends died that day, kids I knew since I was an infant crushed to death only a few feet away from me. I was _seven_.”

She shakes her head, her lips parted and her brain short-circuiting. It _can’t_ be. It can’t. 

“That’s why we can’t talk about this.” She expects him to break into one of his rages with the thrill of fury on his face right now but somehow, he doesn’t. She detects a tremor to his voice and though she can’t quite believe what he is telling her, his pain is like a tangible thing in the air between them. Raw and cutting. “You can never understand what I went through because you have been brainwashed to hate us from the beginning. But we were never the enemy.”

“I - Ben -”

“Don’t. Just don’t.” 

BB8 comes into the house at that moment and Ben stands up, leaving her to gawk after his retreating back as she sits on the couch in shock. 

“Get her to bed,” he snaps at the droid and without a backward glance at her, he storms to his bedroom. 

His scent leaves the air bitter and eye-watering; she can feel his pain more acutely than before, like it is her own. Like _she_ was there with him, in those caves under the mountains, watching her friends die. It’s curious then, that she has to rub a hand against her chest, like she might contain it within her somehow. All that grief, borrowed. Stolen. 

Before the door closes behind Ben with a click instead of the bang she expects, he mutters to BB, “And lower her dose of morphine. She’s coming off it tomorrow.”

Rey can only stare blankly at his closed bedroom door after that and she surprises herself by knowing, wholeheartedly, that she believes him. It’s then she begins to question every moment of her life like someone has lifted one of the rocks in her mother’s garden, only to reveal something rotten and ugly within.


	17. The Gift

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I said I’m fine, Noomaya.” 
> 
> A strange energy passes between them and she doesn’t know if it’s because of the depth of his voice or the way his eyes have changed so suddenly, but it’s like he is pinning her to the couch with just his gaze. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is LONG and probably full of typos which I will obsessively go back and fix because I'm dorky like that :D
> 
> Also thank you all for your support and continuing to read this trash - I really do try to reply to each and every one of you because it's important to me that you know how amazing you are! 
> 
> Anywho, enjoy that tension yo. This is a slooooooow burn but those embers do be lighting up ;)

Rey is pensive the next morning. 

The grey skies outside her bedroom window match her mood, casting the jungle around them in washed hues of olivine and faded juniper. She wishes she knew if what Ben told her was true - not that she doesn’t believe him, but only because a child’s mind can perceive things differently than they actually are. 

She knows that all too well. 

Maybe his parents were terrorists and that’s why the droids were sent to bomb them… but that reasoning doesn’t feel right to her. Nothing feels right anymore - not her lessons in school about the dangers of Alphas and Omegas in society, not the attitudes of pretty much every Beta she has ever known, including herself, and not what they were all told happened the day the bombs fell. 

Everything is in doubt now. 

BB enters her room in a whirl of flashing lights and bubbly beeps to bring her to the kitchen for breakfast. They chat about the fence, about the pouches that keep mysteriously showing up, and about the weather. 

But Rey is listless throughout it. She pokes at her porridge - which is probably one of her least favourite foods to begin with - and can’t help but wonder if Akbar and all the other officers knew. If they were apart of the genocide that took place, or if there is somehow another side to this story. 

She doesn’t like not knowing, even if confronting the truth causes her great distress. 

“BB,” she says, interrupting the droid mid-story about a run-in he had with a bat-like creature building a nest in the now abandoned hatch. “Do you know anything about the war?”

The droid cocks its domed head back and clicks as though startled by her question. 

Φ _Which war, Madam Rey? There are many in humanity’s bloodied history._ Φ

“The latest one. The one that happened twenty years ago.”

Φ _Ah yes. My program has many files on that war. Is there something you would like to know - perhaps about the Great General Grievous or the wise and noble Premier Palpatine?_ Φ

All that name summons now are mental images of a terrified, young boy with Ben’s ears and wild black hair; how he was trapped in the caves of the mountains while droids attempted to bring the mountain down over his head. 

She barely manages to fight back a grimace. 

“No... I was wondering if you know anything about Order 66?”

A strange thing happens then. 

BB8’s lights all turn dark red and it brings its arms to its side in a rigid line. Rey sits back in the chair in alarm, blinking at the droid when its head straightens and a dull clunking sound goes off inside its innards. 

Finally, it seems to look right at her, and she has a creeping feeling that the droid she’s looking at is not BB8 anymore. 

Φ _That information is classified, Madam Rey._ Φ

Even its beeps sounds different; flat and dispassionate, and not at all like the droid she has come to know in the last couple months. 

“Why?” she asks breathlessly. “Why is it classified?”

Φ _Sealed government records prevent me from sharing this information with you. Would you like more toast with your eggs, Madam Rey?_ Φ

She feels cold all of a sudden and it is with a measure of apprehension that she gestures to her bowl. “I’m not eating eggs, BB. This is porridge.”

BB pauses over that with more dull clunks, until its lights change back to yellow and green. It gives its domed head a shake, like a dog shaking water from its fur. 

She finds the gesture anything but endearing. 

Φ _Sorry Madam Rey. There appears to be a glitch in my programming. I should go outside and run another power cycle to remedy the error._ Φ

“Alright.”

She watches the droid roll across the kitchen and open the door to outside. It goes out on the porch, passing Ben without a word, and hooking itself up to its modulator. Rey watches the droid for a long time and finds she is shaking a little.

Classified? But why? And why the hell was BB8 acting like that? 

Then, Ben comes inside and she tries to school her expression into neutrality. He probably wouldn’t be happy with her if he knew she was poking around into his past, even inadvertently. 

She fiddles with her spoon when Ben pauses by the table. He’s half-turned away from her and doing that _thing_ he does when he’s angry and can’t bear to even look in her direction. She’s too perplexed to care all that much, only that his scent is starting to pervade the space all around her. 

Rey looks at him then - _really_ looks at him - and blows out a sharp breath. 

“You should eat,” he tells her before she can ask him what she already knows - that he is getting sick again. Just what they need right now. 

“I am,” she says, frowning at him for good measure. “Ben, are you -”

“Hurry it up, would you? I don’t have all fucking day to wait around to ferry you back and forth from your room like a goddamned taxi driver.”

She’s too taken aback to be offended and then he’s stomping back outside, taking his potent scent with him. 

“Rude,” she mutters to the empty kitchen and then pushes her bowl away, knowing that there are too many things to think about right now for her to have any hope of eating. 

When she goes to reach for the dish towel that usually hangs by the stove, to mop up her crumbs before he can give her shit about that too, she notices the towel is not hanging on its hook. She can just reach the drawers from her chair, but those are empty as well. 

All the dish towels are missing. 

She turns back to the table with an aggravated sigh. “What the hell is happening around here?” 

But the empty kitchen provides no answers and she’s left to her silent brooding. 

*

Ben is sick. Quite sick. 

Rey observes this from her bed and sometimes from the living room couch when she can convince them to move her for a part of the afternoon. It started with his glands. She noted them yesterday when he got snippy with her in the kitchen; how red and swollen they’ve gotten. They haven’t improved in the few days since. If anything, they’ve gotten worse. 

Then, there is his scent.

It’s stronger than ever, a brunt of dessert and earthy birch that even from her room she can smell. She has to hide her face in the covers just to be able to _breathe_ properly. 

Mostly, though, it’s his behaviour. 

She has catch him walking up to the kitchen sink, turning on the faucet and drinking straight out of it like he’s been traversing a desert for the last month and will die if doesn’t drink his body weight in water _right now_.

He keeps cleaning the same places too, wiping the table three times in a row and fussing over the smallest of spills. She knew he was a neat freak the day they got settled here but he’s borderline obsessive now.

He scratches his glands non-stop and at night, he has taken to wandering to the shelter door and staring outside, though for what she has no idea. 

Rey watches him, when she can, noting that he doesn’t go outside to work on the perimeter as often and that it takes her several times to say his name for him to respond to her. 

Though, she thinks that might have a lot more to do with his latest round of ignoring her. 

She understands, as much as she _can._ What he must have gone through does not even bear thinking about, even though it is _all_ she has been thinking about. And it was because of droids and Betas that it happened - the two beings he happens to be stuck with on an alien world. Of course he’s upset, even if she feels that she and BB8 have more than proven their trustworthiness at this point. 

It doesn’t change what happened, though, and she knows that. 

In the days since she stopped the morphine, she’s been in a state of agonizing pain, and it’s only been made worse by this new isolation. She and Ben live in the same house but she’s exchanged more words with a droid than with him. She sees him at mealtimes, but more and more frequently he holes up in his room. 

She doesn’t know if this is a part of his avoidance tactics or if it’s because he’s sick again. Probably both. 

When she does see him, she doesn’t complain about the pain, not even when she catches him grinding his teeth and scowling behind her back any time she makes a sound of discomfort. He brings her meals in her room, but whenever she needs to go to the bathroom or wash up, or even just to leave her room for five damned minutes, he gets BB8 to do it. 

Which might be for the best in his current condition but she misses talking to a bloody human being. And, if she is being _really_ honest with herself, she might miss talking to him. 

They’re not friends - she has to tell herself this again and again. It’s a little dismaying that she has to remind herself of this because for a little while there things were decent between them. Not amazing, or overly friendly, but decent. Now he can barely stand to be in the same room as her for longer than two seconds. 

She can’t help but feel that they’ve taken two steps back. 

He’s still an asshole most of the time and sometimes he really pisses her off, but they were starting to have conversations. To get to know one another as _people_ rather than just using each other to stay alive. 

Rey peeks outside her bedroom window to where she can see Ben working on the perimeter. He could tell her what’s going on with him - it shouldn’t be that weird. He sowed her leg back on for crying out loud. He probably saw her naked, even if she was covered in blood at the time. 

This shouldn’t be so hard. But it is. 

Rey rubs at her hip absently as she watches Ben carry one of the slats over his head. Though she can’t make out much from this distance, she thinks there is stiffness to the way he moves that wasn’t there before. Or it was there but then it had started going away. 

She moans in pain when she shifts back over on the bed and heaves a harassed sigh at the ceiling. 

“Fuck,” Rey says, to no one but herself. 

*

Three more pouches arrive overnight. 

Ben places them on the counter, his hand trembling ever so slightly as he adds them to their steadily growing pile. Even though the proximity alerts went off in each instance, neither BB or Ben is able to catch the creatures at it. BB has also not been able to gain any further insights on the water than Rey did with her scanner, and so with no way to test the pouches, they leave them on the counter, untouched. 

Rey stares at the pile and then glances up to the back of Ben’s head. His hair is extra shiny today. She is reminded of the first time she saw him and how she had wondered if he used conditioner or some other special hair product. 

She knows better now. 

“Any more twigs?” 

Ben doesn’t bother turning back to her to answer. “No.”

He sounds dehydrated, like his throat is scraped raw. She winces and shuffles around on the couch to get to a comfier spot. 

“I wonder why they keep leaving them.”

He says nothing to this and she wonders if he's counting the pouches, like she'll sneak one under her pillow or something. Speaking of…

"Oh, I meant to ask you if you washed those blankets you leant to me? BB was going to do it but they weren't in the laundry room this morning." 

Ben's entire body tenses at once. 

"I'm not accusing you of anything," Rey hastily adds, "and it's not like I need them. I was just… curious."

She shuts her mouth with a click when Ben turns for the door and heads outside. The door slams shut behind him hard enough to rattle the windows.

Well. So much for that then. 

With a dejected sigh, Rey shakes her head and turns back to her tablet. 

*

"Who programmed you, BB?" 

Rey is frustrated with Ben and their apparent regression, but she's still insatiably curious about what he told her the other night. She needs to know the truth - if everything she has been working towards was all a part of some genocidal plan to exterminate abhorrents or if he somehow got it wrong. 

God, she can't even _think_ that word without feeling immensely guilty. 

Φ _The Maker created us, Madam Rey._ Φ 

BB has just finished changing her bandages. Her stitches are healing nicely. Soon, the bandages can come off permanently, but it will be another week yet before she gets to that point.

"Alright… and who is that?" 

Φ _Sorry Madam Rey, that information is -_ Φ

"Classified," she finishes woodenly. 

BB beeps sadly and nods its dome head. 

"Well, anyway.... How's he doing?" She'll let this go - for now. Maybe she can fiddle with BB's programming after they finish the fence. The droid must know _something_ and she intends to find out what she can. 

Ben certainly isn't going to tell her. 

Φ _Master Ben is as rude as ever, even if he has proven to be an efficient worker. The fence is over seventy percent completed now._ Φ

"That's -" 

Rey cuts herself off when she hears a kitchen cupboard slam closed. She makes a silent shushing gesture at BB and then tries to surreptitiously see what Ben is up to now. She leans over to her nightstand, ignoring BB’s admonishing beeps to _be careful Madam Rey_ when she peeks down the hall. 

Ben is standing by the stove, facing the sink so that she only make out his profile. It’s starting to get a _little_ easier for her to move around but as she leans over a little further, she sees just what he is doing in there and almost falls over anyways. 

He has a teaspoon clutched in his ridiculously massive hand. He’s using it to scoop sugar out of one of the canisters. 

Directly into his mouth. 

“Oh dear,” Rey murmurs colourlessly. 

He chews with an absent-mindedness that borders on vapidness, his cheeks bunching with his movements. She can hear the crunch of the sugar between his teeth from here and can’t help but make a face because who in their right mind eats _raw sugar_?

He is shirtless from working outside; some of the sugar has fallen on his chest, melting into the sweat on his skin. She stares at that trail, her lips parting as though in a trance. The liquefied crystals drip down his padded chest, over the defined edges of his abs and down to his black work pants… 

Suddenly, Ben makes a low sound and turns towards her. Mindless of the pain this causes her, she sits right back up, her heart flying to her throat and her cheeks bright red. 

Did he see her spying on him? She can only imagine what he’ll have to say about that. 

ϕ _Madam Rey, are you alright?_ ϕ

It’s comical, the way BB8 keeps its voice modulator down so that it is _almost_ imitating a whisper with its beeps. The droid pats a mechanical hand on the bed and she aims it with a distracted smile as she keeps her eye on the door. 

“Yep. Everything's fine, just fine…” She waits for the pounding of Ben’s footsteps down the hall, for him to come barreling in the room in a fit of fury. But those footsteps never come and she takes a relieved breath. “I think Ben isn’t feeling well. He… eats sugar for energy.”

Rey has no idea if this is true, but she still hasn’t told BB about his - er - _condition_. 

Φ _That is rather odd. I do not have any supplemental files indicating that humans partake in this type of nutritional behaviour._ Φ

“Right well, Ben has a sweet tooth. A really bad one, in fact… so. Yeah.” She thinks hard for a second and then perks up. “When you do your checks on the proximity alerts, can you see if you can find any fruit? There is a specific one we found Ben seems to like. It’s shaped like a banana and hangs high in the trees. That would probably be better than eating sugar.”

She shivers in revulsion at just the thought of that. Yes, fruit would be much better than what he is doing out there right now. 

Φ _I’ll look for those, Madam Rey._ ϕ

“Great, thank you.” 

Soon after, BB leaves and Rey fiddles with her tablet. For some reason, all she can think about is Ben’s sweaty chest and those grains of sugar trailing down…

“Nope,” Rey murmurs under her breath. “No, no, no. Not going there.”

The tablet’s screen powers on with a story about a prejudiced man and a prideful woman. It’s a story she has read before, one of her favourites, but for some strange reason she has a hard time focusing and she eventually gives it up as a bad job. 

Instead, she takes out her scanner and adds to her already lengthy notes about Ben. 

  * _Eats sugar when sick?? Need for sweet foods?_
  * Getting BB to get more fruit, this might be better alternative
  * As of this date, Ben is still a stubborn wanker. Likely stole all his blankets back out of pettiness. Will tease him about this LATER



She smiles at the last entry and shuts off the scanner. When one is confined to their bed for the better part of the day, it’s the little things that count. 

*

“How many pouches does that make now?”

ϕ _Twelve, Madam Rey._ ϕ

“That’s what I thought.”

BB has placed her on one of the kitchen chairs at her insistence. Ben is outside, though he got up far later than normal this morning. He’s usually up at the crack of dawn but he only came traipsing out of his room long after what passes for noon on this planet. 

She fiddles with the pouches, turning over in her head the decision she already came to days ago. She is going to drink the water. Preferably when Ben is in bed and BB is out on the porch power cycling so they don’t know. They’re always around and never leave her alone in the kitchen lest she take another spill to the floor. 

The water is just that - river water. She's convinced that they're only bringing them as some kind of offering, maybe because they don't realize they have their own water supply, or maybe out of some cultural custom.

But an even more insane idea occurs to her. 

Those creatures know she's injured. The large, dark one saved her in fact (no matter what Ben says to the contrary). What if there's more than just river water inside? What if there's medicine and…

Rey knows it's a snowball's chance in hell that these creatures will have some magical cure for her leg. She's a scientist. She doesn't deal in miracle cures or homeopathic remedies. 

Then again, people don't just bring themselves back to life either. 

Either way, she knows she is going to drink the water, even if it's just to prove to Ben that they are trustworthy. She just has no idea how she is going to sneak out here to do this when she can’t even get out of bed on her own, but she is going to have to come up with something. She could try to hide a pouch under her covers but she has a sneaking suspicion Ben has been keeping an inventory of them. They’re always lined up so neatly on the counter and...

ϕ _What would you like done with these, Madam Rey?_ ϕ

She chews her lip, brought out of her troubling thoughts and back to the present. 

“Let’s leave them here. Ben probably doesn’t want them moved.”

BB8 makes a sound of agreement but before it can roll away, she turns to the droid and blows out a carefully measured breath. 

“Before you go, I would like to try something… but we can’t tell Ben, okay?”

*

In hindsight, using BB as a crutch was probably misguided. 

They do a couple of trial runs and by the end of it, Rey is shaking the way she usually does when she has been carrying something heavy for a long period of time. The droid has wheels for feet and moves in a way that makes it hard for her to hang onto it properly. Still, she is determined and they start with something easy; the short path between her bedroom and the bathroom. Her face is lined with sweat by the time BB makes them call it quits and she’s whimpering in pain, but…

She made it an average of four steps before needing a break. Without putting any weight on her bad leg and bracing almost entirely on the droid, she can manage the distance between her bedroom and the bathroom. 

_I won’t have BB when I go for the pouches. The distance is five times that to the kitchen. At least._

But these are just details right now. She celebrates this progress by sitting on the couch and fanning herself off with a tablet. 

ϕ _Are you sure you’re alright, Madam Rey?_ ϕ

“I’m okay, BB. Honestly. You can go outside and relieve Ben. He shouldn’t be working in his state anyway.” 

Stubborn git.

She's a little horrified that she is so out of breath from four measly steps, but she has been bed ridden for the better part of two weeks. Her muscles have atrophied, though not nearly as quickly as they should have. 

It might be the gravity here. She isn’t sure but she notes it in her scanner just to be safe. 

After BB leaves, she starts planning what she can use a crutch out of. Maybe she can get BB to fashion something out of a tree branch, though that will be hard to hide from Ben… 

She stops herself at this line of thought and frowns. 

She shouldn’t have to hide _anything_. She’s a grown adult for Christ’s sakes. 

Rey is just thinking of how to tell Ben this ( _and not ask, I am not “asking” permission for anything,_ she coaches herself) when the Alpha in question comes lumbering into the house. She looks up at him to ask him how the fence is going, or to say _something_ that might get him talking to her again, when she notices that he doesn’t look good. 

In fact, he looks _terrible_. 

“Are you okay?”

Alright, not the _best_ thing she could have started with. 

He freezes in the act of kicking his boots off. His eyes don’t meet hers but settle somewhere over her shoulder. He’s beyond pale and though she knows he is likely sweaty from working on the fence all day, there is a gleam to his skin that is almost unnatural. And his _scent_ \- it’s just as potent as the last time he got sick like this. 

She thinks he might be worse off this time but she isn’t sure. She really hadn’t meant to ask him about it at all, it’s only that his eyes are glassy and his glands are _flaming_ red and she’s worried. 

Actually, genuinely and strangely worried. 

“I’m fine.”

Every hair on her body stands on end and her tablet clatters to the floor when her grip slackens. 

His voice is so deep and raspy, he sounds like he’s been gargling whiskey shots for hours. Or perhaps raw sugar would be a more apt comparison. 

She blushes and clears her throat when he glances at her.

“Oops,” she says weakly, but before she can reach to pick up the tablet, he finishes taking off his boots and starts across the room towards her. 

Rey stills like that, with her hand awkwardly reaching down, and it is not until he stoops down to snatch up the tablet that she relaxes her posture. He hands it to her, his gaze sweeping over her face without really seeing it. 

“You’re sweating.”

She clutches the tablet in her clammy hands and falters at the sonorous depth of his voice. 

“Uh… am I?” 

Damn he smells good. She tries breathing through her mouth instead and swallows past a strange lump in her throat. He hasn’t stepped away either. She can feel his body heat like he’s an open oven.

A little more clarity returns to his expression and he wrinkles his eyebrows as though she is the one acting oddly. 

“Yes. You are.”

“It’s hot today.” She blinks at him when he says nothing to this and fights to maintain eye contact. “You’re sweating too, you know.”

“I’ve been working outside.”

When he still doesn’t move away, she has to stare down at the tablet to avoid the intensity of his gaze. 

“Right well… how is that going?” 

God this is awkward. Why does he have to make everything so bloody _awkward?_

“What were you doing, _Noomaya_?”

If he made her break out into goosebumps before, then she doesn’t even know what to do with the hint of amusement in his eyes coupled with the rumble that is his _absurd_ voice. That name - _Noomaya_ \- feels less insulting than before; there is almost a heaviness to it. A significance she has not been privy to until right now. 

Rey peers up at him like a deer caught in the headlights. 

“I’m just sitting here, reading," she squeaks. God, she could just slap herself upside the head right now. 

His jaw shifts and she notes then that his eyes are lidded. He almost looks inebriated but she knows better. His gaze is avid and fixed entirely on her, like a predator stalking unsuspecting prey. She has to fight not to squirm. 

“You’re a terrible liar.”

She feels her jaw drop and her cheeks colour traitorous red. “Excuse me?”

“You’re. A terrible. Liar.” That weight is there again in his voice, bearing down upon her. Is this an Alpha thing? It must be, but she’s not an Omega so… “You practically have a neon sign on your forehead, announcing every little thought flitting through that oversized brain of yours.”

“Well, I…” 

She honestly doesn’t know what to say and why hasn’t he stepped away? All thoughts of standing up to him have promptly flown out the window. 

“I can smell your pain, _Noomaya._ ” He looks supremely amused and a touch arrogant when his smirk widens, ever so slightly. “Your scent is all over the house. I know when you’re up to your little tricks.”

Her ire snaps back to her, just enough for her to glare at him. “I’m not a child you need to mind. I can do what I want.”

He snorts at her and finally steps away. “And when I have to pick you up off the floor again -”

“You won’t _have_ to do anything,” she snaps. 

Ben sways on his feet when she says this, his smirk fading away. “If you want to try walking, you would be better off using a crutch. Not a droid.”

Oh, that _arsehole_. He must have seen them through the windows. 

“Well I don’t own a crutch so I am making due.” Because it’s pointless denying it now and she shouldn’t have to anyways. He’s making her feel like a sneaky, misbehaved kid and she’s not putting up with that. “Furthermore, I don’t _have_ to ask your permission to walk - which I am still not asking for by the way - and even if I _were_ to ask for your help, you have been avoiding me because I pissed you off again, or whatev -”

“I’m not pissed off.” 

Rey blinks up at him like he just told her she has been able to walk this whole time. 

“Wh - you aren’t?”

Ben’s jaw shifts again and the muscles bunch in his chest in a way that is very distracting considering he is still standing quite closely to her. He turns away then and starts towards the bathroom, presumably to shower or maybe just to give her some damned space so she can think straight. The gland on the nape of his neck is peeping out from his hair, red and glistening with sweat. 

She clears her throat and looks pointedly away from it. 

“It’s rude to walk away without answering someone’s question,” she calls to his retreating back and then because she really is worried about him even though he is a git, “You - you really don’t look well you know.”

He stops by the bathroom door and slams his hands on the frame, making her jump out of her skin. This time, when his eyes meet hers, they’re bright green. 

Her stomach flips and she chokes on air. 

“I said I’m fine, _Noomaya_.” 

A strange energy passes between them and she doesn’t know if it’s because of the depth of his voice or the way his eyes have changed so suddenly, but it’s like he is pinning her to the couch with just his gaze. 

“Alright,” she murmurs in the same tone of voice one might use if they are trying to convince a cheetah not to devour them whole. “Forget I asked.”

The muscles in his chest shift when he grunts at her and then the weight of his gaze is blessedly gone when he closes the bathroom door behind him. 

That was… unnerving. That’s the word she’s going for, right?

She raises a quivering hand to her chest and rubs it there, just like she did the other night when he told her that small, horrible slice of his childhood. It’s not pain that makes her do it this time and she isn’t quite sure she wants to know. 

*

The next morning, there is a hand-carved crutch propped outside her bedroom door. 

Rey knows BB8 didn’t make it; there are intricate patterns near the handle for one thing and it has all the beautiful imperfections of something that it was made by human hands. It’s brindled with cloth at the top to cushion under her arm - cloth that smells a lot like Ben. 

BB8 brings it to her bedside and helps her up to try it out. 

It’s the perfect height for her. Which should be creepy, she thinks, but instead she feels a pleased tingle in her chest. Did he make this last night? And if so, how the hell did he make it so quickly? Unless he started it before…

She smiles down at it before catching herself. 

He was still an asshole to her yesterday. She can’t forget that just because he _might_ have made this for her. It’s not like this a present just for the sake of being nice - it’s a crutch. It’s something she can use to walk so she doesn’t have to rely on him anymore. It was still thoughtful of him and all, and the designs on the handle really are nice but this is for utilitarian purposes. It’s not a _gift_ , for crying out loud, like he’s courting her or something. 

Just the fact of that ridiculous notion makes her snort. 

Even still, she has to bite back another smile as she thumbs the leafing along the wood. Was he a carpenter before, then? An artist? She makes a mental note to add this to her notes. 

Rey peers out at Ben’s bedroom door and frowns. 

It’s closed tight and dark underneath the cracks. She has a feeling he is still in there and decides to interrogate him about the crutch another day. She almost feels guilty that she hasn’t told him her plan with the pouches, considering that she will be using his crutch to get to them, but…

What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him. Right?

*

It’s mid-afternoon and Ben still has not emerged from his bedroom. 

In a fit of cowardice, she almost gets BB8 to knock on his door but decides against it. She has no idea what state he is in and if a droid is the one to wake him up then - that might not go over very well. 

She sits up in her bed, the crutch held in her left hand and bracing against the floor. She hasn’t gotten up by herself yet and doubts her own strength, but this is as good a time as any to start building some of it back, she supposes. 

After painfully pulling herself up with a bunch of very unladylike expletives and grunts, and hopping ungainly on her right foot, she places her weight on the crutch and keeps her left foot lifted up. It’s uncomfortable, sheerly because of the position of her injured leg, but the crutch holds her up well enough. 

Rey blows her hair out of her face and regards the hallway the same way a gunslinger stares down a duelist in a Mexican standoff. 

“I can do this,” she whispers to herself, just once for luck.

She takes a trembling step with her right leg and then braces a hand out towards the wall when she makes the next with her left. After a wobbling few steps, she succeeds in getting to her bedroom door. She stops there, pulling in air and leaning against the door for support. There is already a tender ache under her left arm, but she’s just going to have to get used to that. 

She pushes off the doorframe and hobbles out in the hallway. At least out here, it’s narrow enough so if she falls there is a wall to catch her. She thumps down the corridor clumsily and finally makes it to Ben’s bedroom. 

It’s closed like it was earlier and she can’t hear anything inside. Her stomach is a nettle of nerves when she lifts her hand and knocks on the door as gently as possible. 

Nothing. Not so much as an aggravated sigh or a characteristic growl. 

“Ben?” she whispers and waits for three seconds before knocking again, a little harder than before. “ _Ben?_ It’s Rey.”

She rolls her eyes at herself. Of course it’s her. Who the hell else would it be?

Still nothing. 

She draws away from the door to frown at it. Now, she’s really worried. What if he had a heart attack or something? What if something broke into his room in the night and…?

She knocks hard enough to make her knuckles ring and is about to reach for the door knob when his raspy voice floats through the door. 

“... _go away._ ”

“Are you alright?” Because she isn’t leaving no matter what he has to say about it until he tells her he’s okay. 

For a long time, there isn’t an answer and she considers barging in there anyway when he finally answers her. 

“Yes just… go, okay?” He sounds exhausted and she has an instant where she feels bad. The worst thing she has to deal with is period cramps, but ever since she got her birth control implant, that hasn't been a problem. 

And he has to deal with this monthly, she presumes, at least based on the timing of his last sickness, anyway. 

Rey hovers on the spot for a moment before tapping lightly on the door with her fingernails. 

“Okay... If you need anything, I’m out here.”

He doesn’t reply after that and she hobbles her way back to her bedroom. 

*

“Great work, BB. You can leave this with me.”

ϕ _Are you sure you don’t want me to put it by his door, Madam Rey?_ ϕ

“Er… um, it’s probably better if I do it. He gets, uh, extra grumpy when he’s sick.”

They’re really going to have to tell BB about Ben soon - if the droid hasn’t figured it out already. But it doesn't ask and she breathes a sigh of relief when the droid busies itself on the porch. 

She hobbles from her room to Ben’s with much more ease than yesterday and feels a little silly when she leaves the bowl of fruit and a glass of water by his door. She considers knocking again, but decides to unpeel one of the fruits instead. 

He has the nose of a bloodhound. If he doesn’t smell it, then she’ll knock on the door later. She turns towards the kitchen and bites her lip. 

Tonight, she thinks. 

The creatures have left them several more pouches and Ben is no state to stop her now. She doesn’t have to fight with him about it - because she’s drinking that water one way or another - and they can just talk about it afterwards. Calmly and rationally. 

When Rey peeks down the hall an hour later, both the fruit and the water are gone. She would feel a lot more smug were it not for her nerves over tonight. 

*

She waits until the middle of the night. 

Ben’s words from the other day keep occurring to her, uttered in his almost inhumanly deep voice. 

_Your scent is all over this house. I know when you’re up to your little tricks._

Well, if he is as sick as he seems, then maybe she can pull this off. He wouldn’t want her drinking the water - she isn’t fully certain it’s the best idea either - but those creatures could have attacked the shelter by now a dozen times over. They’re clearly stealthy and able to avoid detection. If only one of them managed to kill a bunch of fenrirs by itself then they would likely be so much dead meat by now. 

But they haven’t attacked them, or so much as shown their faces since their last visit here, so it’s time to lend a little trust. 

And if her plan backfires then there is always the adrenaline pens in the medkit. 

It’s almost comical, the way Rey creeps into the hall. She has decided to forego the crutch until she makes it to the common area. It's too loud using it so close to Ben's bedroom. Instead, she leans on the wall and kind of _shuffles_ down the hall. Her crutch hefted under her free arm as she inches her way towards the living room. At one point, she hits her hip off the wall and has to stifle a groan into her bicep. 

_Fuck_ , that hurt. She eyes Ben’s door furtively, but nothing stirs within and she keeps going. 

After two more breaks and a whole lot of silent cursing, Rey makes it to the living room. This is her Everest - if Everest still existed. No - this is her jungle, her way back to the hatch. The journey before her feels just as perilous. The beige rug on the floor is a river she must avoid. The coffee table is a pit of Scyllas and the display shelf to the right, bearing an assortment of tablets and tools, is a pack of fenrirs. 

She just has to limp across the narrow path to the kitchen and avoid these obstacles. It’s the same thing as fighting her way back through the jungle, only she has to keep _quiet_. She doesn’t know if the water has medicine in it or the creatures are just taking the piss out of them, or the water is in fact poisoned, but they left it for her and if there is even a chance it will help her injuries - she has to take it. 

Rey starts across the room, each step measured as she takes care not to bring the crutch down too hard. It would be a waste to make it all this way, only to be caught now. 

She can see BB8 through the window, going through a power cycle. It’s programmed to wake up if anything stirs in the yard outside, but in here…

She just has to worry about a sick Alpha with a temper problem. Should be easy, right?

It feels like an eon has passed when she finally gets to the island in the kitchen. She pauses there, shaking from the strain of putting all her weight on the crutch and from trying to keep as quiet as possible. Her throat is raw from panting, but she’s close. Just a little further to go. 

“Come on, Kenobi,” she whispers in a bad imitation of General Akbar. “Don’t fuck this up.”

She gets moving again, winding her way around the island, when her crutch gets caught on a chair leg. 

She spins back to it, her breath leaving her in a sharp hiss as she almost loses her balance. The chair wobbles precariously, tipping over to gravity’s pull and as her heart flies into her throat, she shoots her hand out just in time to stop it from falling. Her crutch clatters against the metal island and her face screws up in a grimace. 

Did Ben hear? Is he awake? 

She pulls in a sharp breath and goes utterly still, her eyes wide in the darkness as she waits to see if he heard her. She thinks a floorboard creaks, but when she cocks her head, there isn’t another sound after this. 

Rey carefully nudges the chair out of her path and shoves her hair out of her face. Her skin is moist with perspiration. She's trembling so badly she has to close her eyes and count to ten. 

_Okay, that could have been fucking horrible._

She forces herself to calm the mad race of pulse and when she turns to the counter, her nerves crank up a notch, only this time it's because of the potentially stupid and mad thing she is about to do. 

But she's here. She's made it this far and she can't turn back now. 

Rey picks up one of the pouches. Water sloshes around inside it, muffled by the cured fabric encasing it. She probably should have grabbed an adrenaline pen before doing this, but it’s too late now. If all else fails - if she has some kind of reaction - she’ll just scream for Ben. 

“Okay,” she whispers, amping herself up. “Bottoms up.”

She unscrews the cap, her stomach a tight ball inside her and her hands shaking as she raises the pouch to her lips. Nothing is going to happen. It’s just water, just plain old river water and she’s nervous for no reason. All her crazy daydreams of the water somehow being a cure are silly - even if her nerves are alight with desperate hope that maybe it _is_ a cure. These are the things she keeps telling herself and then, as the cool liquid touches her lips, she closes her eyes and goes for it. 

The water is just as sweet as she remembers. Not like processed sugar or anything like that. More like coconut juice, or aloe; sweet but plain and light. She takes a big swig, swishing it around in her mouth for good measure before swallowing. 

Then, she lowers the pouch and waits, hobbling a little on the spot as she keeps her weight on her right foot.

Maybe she is supposed to drink the whole thing? Or _maybe_ she’s crazy and it’s just water after all. The floorboards creak again and she turns back to the shadowy living room, anxious and a little crazed as she grasps the pouch tightly in her hand like it's the holy grail. 

Well, if it was poison, she would be sick by now, right? It wouldn’t really _hurt_ to drink more. Just to be thorough. 

Rey blows out a short breath and then tips the pouch back again, draining it in a few gulps. Water drips down her chin and onto her shirt, but she doesn’t notice because really what harm would it do to drink _two_ pouches? Just to be extra thorough. 

And before she knows it, she’s drained not two, not three or four, but _five_ of the pouches and when did she get so thirsty anyway - is it strange that she can’t stop, is it weird that the water suddenly tastes _amazing_ , like it’s life itself - and how did she not notice before how much she misses this water compared to the filtered shit they’ve been drinking since they got back, and wow, she feels really great all of a sudden, like she could run across this encampment, like she could climb a mountain and take on a pack of fenrirs and like this whole wide world has been made just for her and that she really should keep drinking, yes that’s what she should do, that’s - 

“ _What the fuck?_ ”

Rey does not notice that she’s dropped the empty pouches on the floor in her haste to drink more of the water. She does not notice that her crutch has clattered to the floor, quite loudly at that and that she is resting a little bit of weight on her left leg now. It still hurts but the pain has dimmed out. There is a strange buzzing sensation under her skin, tingling out from her tummy to her extremities - and most especially to her injured hip and leg. 

But what she really failed to notice is that the light is now on in the kitchen. And that she isn’t alone anymore. 

Many details slam into the forefront of her mind at once, with startling clarity. 

Ben stands just at the threshold of the room, his hand on the switch and his hair a wild mane like he has been pulling on it for the last six hours. His lips are just as red as his glands, which she can clearly see because he’s only wearing sleep pants. He looks like he’s been biting at his bottom lip; it’s redder than the top and almost bleeding. He’s _drenched_ in sweat and there are hectic red circles on his cheeks. His scent not only invades the room, but _conquers_ it like a tsunami to a defenseless village. 

Rey thinks she must look rather petrified in that moment, like he’s busted her doing something far worse than drinking some river water.

Her eyes are very round and her face covered in water. She doesn’t know when that happened, only that when she looks down at herself, the way someone does when waking from a deep sleep, there are almost a dozen pouches all over the floor. 

Her gaze snaps back to Ben at the same moment he must realize what she’s done. 

“Rey - tell me you didn't drink the water.”

Well, she obviously did even if she doesn’t really remember anything after consuming the first pouch. Rey looks down at the half-drunk pouch in her hand like it will have a better answer to this question than she will and suddenly, her mouth floods with saliva. 

It’s like she doesn’t have control over her own motor functions anymore. She goes to drink the water again - she _needs_ it - when suddenly Ben is _right there_. 

He snatches the pouch from her hand and throws it away. 

“What are you - _have you_ _lost your damned mind_?” 

She reaches for it with a sound of desperation, but he steps in her path, blocking her. 

“ _Rey_ ,” he growls, his eyes wide and disbelieving.

“But I need it!” she whines petulantly. 

She scrambles around him and not once does she notice that she’s using both feet to do it. She’s too focused on the water, so when Ben’s hot hands close over her shoulders and yank her back in front of him, it takes her a long moment to realize that he’s glaring down at her in incredulous fury. 

She shrinks under his gaze and finally, rationality starts returning to her. Did she… did she really drink all that water? It doesn't feel like she did but the evidence is laying on the floor all around them. 

And suddenly, she's _mortified_. 

"Let go of me." Oh god, she drank almost all of if, didn't she? What the hell came over her? This didn't happen when they had the water before. 

“I don't fucking think so," he growls at her and she just wants to lie down, or hide under a rock to avoid him. But he isn't having it. "I can’t believe you snuck out here to - hey, look at me, idiot.”

He goes to check her pupils and she flinches away from him, slapping his hand away from her face. 

“Okay, enough already," she snaps and when he won't let up, she slaps him again, "Cut it out!”

“I’m checking to see if you poisoned yourself! Which I bet you did! I can’t fucking believe you did this,” he sounds so angry, his voice is almost unrecognizable. 

She tries pulling away from him but he’s so damned _strong._

“I’m not poisoned, you jackass! I just… there’s something in that water.”

“Like poison?” he growls and this time, he grabs her jaw and manages to get her eyelids back, one at a time. She scowls at him when he does this, but it’s not like she can pull away without him ripping her damned jaw off. He draws his head back when her pupils dilate as they normally would but doesn’t let go of her jaw. “How do you feel?”

“I’m fine, no thanks to you,” she grits at him and then she pinches his arm to remind him that she’s not a cat or something that he can just scruff when he wants to. 

He hisses at her and finally lets go, but he doesn’t step away. “What the fuck were you thinking, hm? Sneaking out here to test the water when we _agreed_ that was a stupid idea. Scratch that - it’s _suicidal_ at best.”

“Well, I changed my mind and clearly I was right!”

“Like fuck you are! I just walked into the kitchen to find you guzzling water like a fucking drug addict. But _noooo_ there’s clearly nothing in the water and you - why are you looking at me like that?”

Rey is only staring at him because she can’t make herself look down. Not yet because what if she’s imagining things? What if it’s just wishful thinking? Because surely, she can’t be _standing_ on both her feet right now. 

“Rey? Talk to me, goddamnit.” Ben looks worried now and she will marvel over that later, at how quickly his rage transforms to concern, but for right now she can barely breathe at all. 

“My leg.” 

He reaches for her again, staring down at her leg and then up at her in alarm before his concern morphs to confusion. 

Because she’s _smiling_ now. Practically beaming with her own source of light. 

“What is it?” His eyes flit all over her face like she’s about to combust or something, but then it is _her_ reaching for him because this is real. And she can…

“I can put weight on my leg again!”

“Rey -”

“Look!” she cries and she tentatively presses down on her left foot. It still hurts and she can already tell that she won’t be winning any races any time soon, but she step down now without going into excruciating pain. 

“Hey - careful, _Noomaya._ We don’t know if you’re just high or poisoned -”

“I am not bloody poisoned! Just look, would you?” She shakes her head when he goes to stop her and then uses his arm for balance when she lifts her bad leg and slowly wriggles it. She winces a little, but she can’t stop smiling because this means _she can walk, she can, she can, she can._

She beams up at him and doesn’t notice a flicker in his cautious demeanor as he takes in all the ways her joy transforms her face. 

“That water has something in it - and before you say it, _not_ poison. That’s why they kept bringing us more. I can’t believe I didn’t think of this, it makes total sense!”

And then, when she looks up from her leg to Ben’s face, she _remembers_. The scratch, the deep groove in his skin; tearing his face to ribbons and even after, when he was healing, he clearly was going to have a scar, but _now_ … 

It’s gone. There’s barely a trace of it at all on the long, sloping plains of his cheek. 

How could she forget? 

"Your scratch!" She exclaims triumphantly and he rears back a little as though startled. She might be acting a little manic right now but she doesn't care because she was _right_. "This proves it. That scratch I gave you healed.”

“It could have just _healed_ on its own.” But even he sounds a little doubtful as he aims he dubious glance at her leg.

“No - I remember how deep it was -”

“ - would fucking hope so, since you’re the one who maimed me -”

“- and it’s gone now. It’s the water - we drank it and bathed in it. That has to be it. The water is -"

"Rey."

"- a _cure_. I mean, we'll have to do more tests to prove it but I was right -" 

" _Rey_." 

"- those creatures aren't our enemies and - _hey_!" 

This last word ends on an undignified squeak when Ben suddenly reaches up and snatches her hand off his face. She blushes when she realizes she was just _touching_ his _face_ for several minutes but when he grabbed her hand, he had accidentally yanked her forward a few steps and they are…

Close. Really close. 

His eyes are doing that thing again, glittering like jade stones and reflecting at her in feline glow. Creamy vanilla and birch fills the air in her lungs - in her _head -_ because her brain surely isn't in there anymore. His hand is _hot_ on her wrist, branding her in scorching heat. How is he even on his feet right now? His fever must be through the roof. She goes utterly still beneath him, which is probably what he was going for, only now he looks...

Famished.

Like he's been deprived of the thing he has wanted for a long time and it's suddenly landed right at his feet. His broad chest expands on a breath, then again, only quicker and she thinks he might smelling her again, though she's not in pain this time. She doesn't quite know what she is. 

His throat makes an audible click when he swallows. 

“You need to calm down, _Noomaya_ ,” he murmurs and his voice is that deep, dragging thing that does crazy things to her stomach.

To her everloving _sanity_.

His grip tightens on her wrist, like he thinks she might try to slip away or something. She never noticed how wide his eyes are before. She always thought them too small for his face. Narrowed and angry and perpetually morose with his sullen emotions. But they’re not small at all. They’re wide and almond shaped, and they really do suit him, and _why_ is she thinking about his stupid eyes when she should be putting some bloody distance between them. 

As it is, she can’t move away from him even if she wanted to. 

"Sorry." Why is she whispering? She doesn't know, only that she can't read the expression on his face. It isn't anger or annoyance or wry sarcasm. It isn't anything she can decipher at all. "I, um… got carried away." 

His finger brushes against her palm and she knows the movement must be incidental, but her lips part on a shaky exhale because when did it get so warm in here and why does her stomach keep fluttering? 

His nostrils flare and she thinks that he might, ever so slightly, shift even closer. 

“You’re going to give yourself a heart attack one day.”

“No.” But she only sounds faintly petulant.

If she shifts forward even a hair, her forehead would clip his chin. A breathless sigh leaves her at this realization and she thinks that his gaze has maybe, _definitely,_ dipped down to her mouth. 

“Yes, you will. If you don’t give me one first.” Deep, dragging. She might be too fascinated with how red his lips are. 

"Ben," she murmurs but she has no follow up after that because she must be suffering from an aneurysm or something. She can't think at all which is terrifying. Her brain has signed off and she's left to the mercy of the dark, unknowable cast of his eyes. 

Suddenly, he draws away, releasing her hand and a pent up breath all at once. 

"In the morning." His voice is almost normal again, though it’s mottled by fatigue or something else she can't yet admit to. 

"What?" Because only he can reduce her to single syllable words. 

"We'll send the droid to find them in the morning. Just… go to bed."

"But, my leg -"

"In the morning, _Noomaya_." 

Rey can't help but shiver at the command in his voice and Ben seems to notice because his eyes dip down to her mouth and then back up again. 

"Alright." 

"Good." He nods at her once and then the spell seems to break because he bends down to pick up her crutch and suddenly she can breathe again. 

He hands it to her wordlessly and then they are just staring at each other once more, only now she’s _blushing_ and she hates her transparency. She really does. 

“Well?” he says and when he lifts his eyebrow at her, she thinks he might be smirking at her, just a little.

“Well, what?”

“Are you going to go to bed, or do you want to stand around here all night?”

“Oh - right.” Flaming, her face is _flaming_ and she can hardly stand to look at him anymore. “I’ll just…”

He moves aside and lets her hobble around the island on her crutch, lingering nearby in case she falls. At least, that’s why she thinks he’s standing so close to her. 

After Ben walks her to her room, making sure she doesn’t push it and uses her crutch because yes - her injuries still have a long way to go - she can hear him mopping up the water in the kitchen. Then, when his bedroom closes she hears that too because she's alert to him now in a way she wasn't before. 

He is sick, she tells herself. And while her leg already feels better, there is still a long road of recovery ahead of her, not to mention what they’re going to do tomorrow when they reach out to those creatures. 

She really needs to stop thinking about whatever that moment was in the kitchen because he’s just sick and she’s just excited about her leg. And she _really_ needs to get some sleep. 

*

She doesn't. 


	18. Ayashe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “- I get custodial over my territory.” She frowns at his word choice, but he beats her to any kind retort with a harassed sigh. “Look, it’s just different for my kind. Especially when… it’s just different.”
> 
> Rey toes a rock with her good foot and grounds back a tiny smirk. “Are you saying that I am your territory? Because I take issue with that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do believe introductions are finally in order for our brave heroes and the terrifying and mysterious Laughers...
> 
> Next chap will be a little delayed - hoping to post over the weekend. Let's just say that things will be heating up... hem hem, if you'll forgive the pun. 
> 
> Also - holy crap guys, we're almost at 20 chapters and they haven't frigging kissed yet. Thank you for your patience while I build this world and these characters. I promise there is smutty goodness coming very soon! <3

Rey thought these dreams would stop. She hasn’t had one since the night the fenrirs attacked them and she thought after almost dying that they would just go away. 

But she was wrong. 

“I don’t like this dream,” she confesses to the horse. 

“Is that what we’re doing?” 

The horse looks around the cockpit as though seeing it for the first time, standing where the co-pilot’s chair should be and taking up all the space like it normally does. Earth is stretched out before them, only now the bombs have already dropped. Fire razes across the continents and oceans in a riptide of fiery flames, consuming all in its path. 

“Yes? Don’t you know that? Aren’t you… guiding me?”

The horse blinks at her with its long eyelashes and dark eyes. 

“This isn’t my dream.” Though she thinks it means this more as a question than a statement. 

“No,” she tells the horse. The fire arcs up from the ground and heads straight for the ship. They won’t be fast enough. She never is in her dreams. 

“Then wake up, Rey.”

“I can’t!” 

The ship starts shuddering as the blast wave soars towards them and she can feel the skin on her face bubbling with radiation. She starts to scream as the ship's alarms go off and when she looks to her side the horse is right beside her. 

“Wake up, Rey. _Wake_ -”

*

Rey is still thinking about her dream as they watch BB8 fly into the trees and out of sight. 

She should be overjoyed that she can walk again, that she can even stand out here to listen to the bugs and birds make their morning songs. But there is a chill she can’t quite shake when she thinks about her dream for too long and it takes Ben several tries to get her attention again. 

“Hello? Are you deaf? I said I’m not sure about this.”

She shakes herself as though to clear it and when she looks at Ben, he’s frowning at her. 

“What? This was your idea, remember?”

“I’m aware of that, _Bagwanaw_. I’m just voicing my reservations.”

“Oh we’re back to that name are we?”

“Are you even listening to what I’m saying?”

“Yes.”

“Really, because -”

“I trust BB with this.”

She made the droid take food with it as an offering, only because the creatures might be a little startled to see a machine patrolling around the forest for them. She hopes that plan doesn’t backfire. That they have a chance to speak with these creatures. She’s worried about the droid being out there on its own. They still don’t know where that terrifying laughter came from. 

Hopefully, the creatures can help them figure that out. 

“They could react badly to a droid showing up on their doorstep. You’re the one who said he was acting weird the other day. What if things get violent and they destroy him?”

Rey flushes at the mention of this. She _did_ tell Ben that BB acted strangely when she was sitting with the droid for breakfast, but she very much neglected to tell him what the topic of conversation was about. 

And she has no intention of doing so, either. 

“He? I wasn’t aware that BB had a gender.”

A long sigh follows her words. “He - it - what the fuck does it matter? The important thing is-”

“I think you’re warming up to it - or should I say _him_?”

“He’s been useful.” He endures her astonishment with well practiced blankness. “Oh, don’t look so surprised. I’m just being practical.”

“I stand by what I said. I think you really are warming up to BB.”

“Well, I think you’re a moron.”

“Ah, yes - name-calling. The lowest form of wit.”

“You’re the one who called me a Sasquatch earlier _and_ thought it was a good idea to drink questionable water, so -”

“I’m never going to live that down, am I?”

It’s Ben’s turn to grin then and she has to look away from him when the back of her neck gets hot. They’re standing at the bottom of the porch and Rey’s soaking in as much sun as possible before the mists cloud over as they always do in the late morning. It’s been two weeks since she’s been outside and she can feel it. She has her handy crutch with her, but she still needs Ben for the stairs. She suspects the stiffness in her hip and leg will never fully fade; the tissue there is still swollen from healing and though the stitches have all but evapourated - a fact that stunned even BB8 to silence when they took off her bandages early this morning - she will never regain full use of that leg. 

She’s accepted this. If it means she can at least walk around on her own then it’s a small price to pay in her opinion. 

“You look better.” He smells more like himself too - or least a lot less potent. But she doesn’t tell him this of course. 

Ben’s grin drops faster than lead down a well. 

“Sorry - I know you don’t want to talk about it,” Rey quickly adds. She’s _nervous_ and it’s only normal because he typically doesn’t react well to these conversations. She isn’t nervous because of what may or may not have transpired last night. She just thinks it’s important for him to know that she is genuinely relieved. Just so he knows that he’s - well - not alone. After everything he did for her in the days after her injury, he should know. “You just… you looked pretty sick the last couple of days. It’s good to see you’re feeling better.”

 _Are you, though?_ She thinks but does not ask because suddenly she’s just so _unsure_ around him. _Are you feeling better?_

Something brushes in the back of her mind, light and tickling, like feathers. She blinks for a moment, eyes screwing up in confusion because it almost feels like… fingertips, grazing her hair. Only she and Ben are the only ones out here, of course, and he’s standing several feet away from her. 

Ben’s looking out towards the jungle, out to where BB8 ventured off in search of the creatures. He couldn’t have reached over to her and besides, why would he touch her hair? It doesn’t make sense, only… 

That feeling lingers. 

Tucked away, so far in her subconscious she almost doesn’t recognize it, there is a beat back there, like that of a heart. Spindling along that beat, she gets a sense of reassurance. Comfort. Tentative and stilted with disuse. 

She’s so thrown by it that she almost doesn’t hear what Ben says. 

“I’m… better. Today.” He pauses like that, his jaw clenched and gaze pointedly fixed away from her. “Look, about what happened last night - ”

Their eyes briefly meet and then they quickly look away from each other. 

They haven’t talked about what happened in the kitchen - beyond him pointing out the idiocy of her whole gorging-all-the-potentially-poisonous-water-scheme. By the morning, she had convinced herself that nothing really _happened_. It was just a heated moment between them. Just a fluke of his hormones, or pheromones, or whatever madness runs through his bloodstream once a month. And for her, well - she had just found out she could use her leg again. She was loopy from the water and elated with her discovery. 

They can just… pretend it never happened. Because nothing _did_ happen.

So, she’s shocked he’s bringing it up at all. It’s not in his character to _deal with things_ , as she has noted many, _many_ times in her notes about him, and for him to do it now is…

Strange. Very strange. 

Ben clears his throat and she thinks he might not finish his sentence. That he might abandon explanations altogether because it’s just too damned awkward. 

But he likes to surprise her. 

“- I get _custodial_ over my territory.” She frowns at his word choice, but he beats her to any kind retort with a harassed sigh. “Look, it’s just different for my kind. Especially when… it’s just different.”

Rey toes a rock with her good foot and grounds back a tiny smirk. “Are you saying that I am your territory? Because I take issue with that.”

She has never seen Ben embarrassed or any such nonsense, but his ears are poking out of his hair today and they’re positively _crimson_. He looks horrified that she might think that, which only makes her smirk widen. 

“Wha - _no._ No, obviously not. I just meant that - look it’s like lions, okay?”

Rey hobbles a little to turn to him, her smirk fading away as she eyes him with tentative interest. “Lions?”

Ben takes his hands out of his pockets and though his ears are still red, he’s at least able to look her in the eyes again. 

“Yeah. They operate as part of a pride and they have territory they guard. And when one of them does something stupid - let’s say, tries to drink toxic water or something like that -” Rey scowls, but he ignores her, gesturing with his hands around them in a wide circle, “- then the others step in to protect them. It can seem aggressive from the outside, but they’re just doing what their instincts tell them.”

She’s not sure how that explains why he almost kissed her - a fact which she is still grappling with herself - but she lets it go. Because it never happened, anyways. Nope. 

“So, you’re saying I’m a part of your pride.” 

She might be grinning at him, just a little.

He drops his hands and she thinks he might get annoyed with over ruining his analogy, but there is something light about his eyes. Not quite playful, but not irritated either. 

“I didn’t say that.”

“I think you did.”

“I don’t see any witnesses around here.”

“I’m a witness.” She points at herself in case he doesn’t know who she is talking about. 

“You’re a pain in my ass, is what you are.”

“Guess that’s your problem, seeing as we’re a pride. Wait - does that mean BB is a member too? Are you going to flash across the room like a coked out superhero if he stubs his mechanical toe.”

“ _Flash?_ I don’t recall getting naked at any point.”

Her face flames red but she’s too invested in teasing him to turn back now and she is definitely _not_ picturing that. Nope. “Flash as in the superhero _The Flash_. Did you not read comics as a kid?”

“I don’t move that fast.”

“Ha! So you did read it!” Rey looks positively smug when he rolls his eyes. “And yes you do. You’re like _Sonic the Squirrel_ or whatever, zipping around the place - why are you laughing?”

“ _Sonic the Squirrel?_ ” His eyes crinkle with his mirth and she can’t help but laugh a little herself. 

“Yes! That’s exactly what you would be if someone made a comic book about you.”

“I don’t have a tail,” Ben points out as though this is the only flaw in her story. 

“See you _would_ have had a big bushy tail, but you were teased mercilessly as a kid, so you cut it off. It’s really quite tragic.”

“Have you been drinking the river water again?”

“Nope, I’m just coming up with your origin story. I think it’s quite good, actually.”

“Are you sure you haven’t been dipping into the morphine?”

Rey ignores him.

“I can see the cover now - a gigantic, grumpy man with pink tights and a chopped off squirrel tail on his back. His real name is Timmy - hence all the anger problems.”

“I thought I was angry about the squirrel tail?” He almost laughs when he says it but staunches it at the last second.

“No, that’s why you’re _tragic_. Like _Batman_ or _Rorschach_. Your anger issues stem from the emasculating name your parents gave you.”

“Ah, I see.”

They turn back for the house and she braces against Ben’s shoulder so he can help her hobble up the steps. She doesn’t really notice the heat of his skin this time. She’s animated now, grinning at the mental images of this would-be comic, and Ben just… lets her keep going, even though she can tell he finds the whole thing ridiculous. 

“So Timmy is really bad at fighting crime because he moves too quickly. Keeps breaking through walls and causing all sorts of property damage…”

Their voices trail off as they argue over the clumsiness of this comic-version of Ben and disappear inside. 

The jungle goes quiet in their absence. All the bugs and birds stop at once, like a maestro cutting off his musicians. 

Along one of the tallest trees on the mountain, a coil of unnatural black fog curls around its trunk. The blackness lingers there; everything it touches curls and wilts. It whips and spindles as though listening to the humans’ conversation, then after a while, it moves on. 

_The droid is gone,_ a voice whispers through the underbrush and before long, throaty little giggles respond, warping and twisting into jagged cackling. 

*

“Should we name the creatures? I’ve named everything else.” 

Rey fiddles with the scanner to distract herself from peeking outside every five minutes. It’s been hours and BB8 still hasn’t returned. She’s worried - for the droid’s safety primarily but also… She can’t stop thinking about the way it’s light turned red and its dull voice, telling her that she couldn’t ask about Order 66. Like BB wasn’t really BB anymore and…

She has a bad feeling. 

It’s been creeping up on her all afternoon, like the way she sometimes gets headaches from the low pressure systems on this planet. She hopes he gets back soon and only snorts faintly when she realizes that she has started to call BB a “he” too. 

Anxiety makes her restless and impatient. Ben seems to sense it because he appeases her for once. 

“I don’t see the point. They might have their own names. You could offend them.” 

He smirks faintly like that idea is ridiculous and hovers over a boiling pot of soup, stirring it every so often. She’s getting sick of all the dehydrated food. Which reminds her…

“Is there any fruit left?”

“No.”

“Really? You ate all of it?”

Ben’s shoulders tighten up and she decides not to push it. Still, she’s surprised he managed to eat all of them in one day. He’s usually like a bird when he eats, picking at his food and only taking small bits at a time. 

She wilts on the couch and sighs. “Damn. I almost miss those bananas.”

“I could go out and get more.”

Rey’s response is immediate and so emphatic she surprises even herself. “ _No._ ”

Ben turns back to her, his eyebrows raised. 

She flushes and shrugs. “We should wait for BB to get back.”

“Don’t tell me you’re worried for my safety all of a sudden?” 

Rey blinks at his crooked smirk and as a strange rush of tingles goes up her back, she realizes he’s in a good mood today. 

It’s… weird.

“I’m not.” But she would be worried, just a bit. 

“Right - then why are you so against it?”

“What if the fenrirs come back? Or the Laughers - we still don’t know what they are and if you’re out there alone - well, I’m not in any shape to lead anything on a wild goose chase to save your ass again.”

She is trying to sound sarcastic, but she isn’t really succeeding. Just the thought of him going outside right now makes her incredibly anxious, though she can’t really reason out why. 

Ben shakes his head incredulously, appraising her with a knowing glint in his eyes. “I would be armed -”

“I just don’t want you to go outside right now.” She folds her good leg up so she can rest her chin on her knee and fiddles with her scanner some more. 

The teasing leaves his face and he tilts his head at her like she’s some creature he just discovered that he doesn’t know the purpose of yet. 

“What’s with you today?”

She freezes like he shot her. “Nothing.”

“You’re being twitchy.”

“Am not.”

When he takes the soup off the stove, he doesn’t transfer it to bowls right away. Instead, he grabs one of the kitchen chairs and carries it over to where she is sitting on the couch, where he turns it around and straddles it with his massive thighs. 

Rey stares at him like the act of him willingly sitting next to her is as surprising as if he suddenly started levitating off the floor.

He looks at her the same way he does when she says something that doesn’t add up to her intelligence and though she resents that look, she thinks he might not mean it that way this time. 

“If you’re worried about the droid -”

“No - well _yes,_ but…”

“Well, are you going to spit it out?” he drawls in a manner that makes her instantly annoyed with him. “Or should we break out the Pictionary?”

She pauses at that. “Pictionary?”

“ _Noomaya,_ ” he growls warningly. 

Rey huffs at him but when he doesn’t leave she realizes that he might be trying to be _nice_. That he’s offering something that he hasn’t before. She picks at loose thread on the couch and she can tell he’s about two seconds from really losing his patience so she says the first thing that comes to mind. 

“What does it mean?” 

His eyebrows wrinkle. “What does what mean?”

“That nickname. I thought it was an insult.”

“That depends on your definition of an insult.”

“Just tell me what it means. Please?”

His t-shirt is straining against his arms with the way he casually rests them against the back of the chair and she tries not to notice. To not think about the way he leaned into her last night, like he might… 

Her gaze flits back to his when she realizes that she’s ogling him anyways but he doesn’t seem to notice or care. He folds his lips together and that crooked smirk returns enough for her to narrow her eyes in suspicion. 

“Little.”

“What?” 

“It means little.”

She sputters for a moment, forgetting about the disquiet of her dreams and the sense of foreboding that has permeated throughout this entire day. 

“I’m not _little_. I’m actually above average height for my sex.”

He snorts like a bull, or better yet an ill-behaved horse, but when he tells her that she’s _tiny_ she isn’t really listening anymore. 

_You kept calling me a horse._

He said that to her, didn’t he? When they were talking about her dreams, or whatever they are. She didn’t really notice _what_ he had said until this very moment. 

“... Rey?”

Ben looks speculative when she returns to their conversation and she doesn’t mean to blurt it out, but he really just brings it out of her sometimes. Just by bloody _looking_ at her like that. 

“I had another dream about the horse.”

He opens his mouth and then seems to think better of it, his chair creaking under his bulk. 

“It was like the others. We were in the ship, leaving Earth -”

“We?”

Rey flounders on air and shifts her gaze away from him. He has long eyelashes like the horse too. Same eyes, same snarky attitude. How couldn’t she have seen this before? 

“I think you were there too.”

“With you and the horse?”

Does he already know? 

“Sort of.”

He seems to chew on this for a moment and then he nods. “Alright.”

“I thought the dreams were done, but when I woke up this morning I just felt - well - _bad_.”

“Bad?” 

She expected him to write this off already but when she thinks about it, he never said he didn’t believe her about what happened when she told him how the horse helped her come back to life. 

And she wonders then if it’s not Ben who needs convincing after all, but her. 

“I just have this awful feeling and it doesn’t make sense. It’s not scientific at all but ever since we got here and these dreams started, bad things keep happening.”

“You think they’re warnings?” Ben sounds curious if anything and she can’t help but feel at least a little reassured that he isn’t calling her a nutcase and locking her in her bedroom. 

“Maybe. Yes.” She looks outside, hoping against hope that BB will be there. But the clearing is just as empty as every other time she’s checked it. “It’s worse today than it’s ever been.”

Ben taps his fingers on the chair, his eyes flitting between hers. “Do you think it’s the water?”

She groans and drops her head back against the couch. “It wasn’t poisoned Ben, for the last -”

“No, _Noomaya_ ,” he grunts impatiently, “Do you think the water caused the dreams?”

Rey frowns in consideration. It’s certainly possible. If the water has the power to heal wounds and lord knows what else, then maybe it has _other_ properties too. 

“But you drank the water too. If we’re going by that logic then…” She trails off, tilting her head at him like she can hear what he hasn’t said out loud. “Wait - have you -?”

“Have I what?” His eyes are dark and inscrutable as she pieces it together. 

“You - _why didn’t you say anything_?” she exclaims and almost throws a pillow at him for good measure. 

“I didn’t trust you before.” He says it so matter a factly that she can only blink at him. “I wasn’t about to tell the person who beat me half to death and then tied me to a chair that I was dreaming about tentacle monsters or freak storms -”

“You dreamed about Scylla?” she says breathlessly, bypassing his old accusations. If he’s been having the dreams too then it’s definitely because of the water. It _must_ be. 

“That’s what I said, isn’t it?”

“Christ Ben, all this time - but wait, are you still having them?” she asks suddenly. 

He shakes his head slowly. “Not for a few weeks now.”

“Since coming here?”

“A little while after that,” he concedes. 

“That makes sense. You haven’t had the water, so maybe it - wears off? We’ll have to test it. Maybe get BB to collect some samples for us, or if the creatures bring us more pouches -.”

“Slow the fuck down,” he snaps because by now he knows that if he doesn’t cut her off, she’ll keep going like a hamster on a wheel. 

She remembers last night, then. How he grabbed her hand and pulled her so close to him, she could count all the moles on his face. When she looks at him, she thinks he might be thinking about it too because his ears are red. 

“We don’t know anything yet,” he says in a quieter tone, “it could just be a coincidence.”

“After what happened to me, after coming back from the dead practically -”

“ - if that’s even what happened -”

“ - and now knowing you’re having dreams too, that must be it.”

“ _Rey_ -”

“I know, I know,” she says hurriedly. “I’m just thinking out loud.”

He sighs at her, or perhaps at the whole situation and leans back in his chair to regard her gravely. “The important question is how this helps us now.” 

“What do you mean?” she drops her knee down and can’t help but lean forward excitedly. This means she isn’t crazy. That these dreams might actually be _useful_ to them. She wishes he had told her sooner, but - she gets it. She didn’t trust him before either. 

“If these dreams - and it’s a big if - are actually warnings of some kind, then we should start taking watches again. Especially with the droid gone.”

“You - do you think something is going to happen tonight?”

“You’re the one who said bad things keep happening every time you have them.” He shrugs at her blank look and then gets up off his chair, tall and looming. “I think that’s the smartest thing we could do until we talk to our new furry friends.”

“If they know anything.”

“Right.” 

Ben turns back to the stove and she almost wishes he didn’t leave. That they could keep talking this through because suddenly she’s shaking all over and there’s tight pressure in her chest, just like when they were out in the open jungle and vulnerable to attack. She’s gotten too complacent here, with a roof over her head and a door that locks to the outside. There is still so much about this world they don’t know. 

And she still can’t move around very well. If something breaks into the shelter and she’s barely able to fucking _walk_ let alone run for her life...

“Ayashe.”

Rey looks up at Ben's back and blinks in confusion. 

“What?”

“Ayashe,” he repeats quietly. “What - you don’t know Ojibwe mythology?”

He is telling her something, right now. He is telling her something important because everything is in layers with this maddening Alpha. He is just like an onion, apt to burn your eyeballs in their sockets and make you cry with frustration, as you peel him back, painful bit by bit. 

She’ll tell him this theory one day, but right now she’s far more focused on what he just disclosed to her. 

“You’re Indigenous?”

“Ayashe,” he says without acknowledging her question, “ is essentially the main character of a heroic epic. The story begins with him being betrayed by his family and ends with the world fire. The story varies depending on which tribe is telling it, but he always ends up abandoned on a deserted island by his father.”

Rey listens breathlessly, the scanner all but forgotten in her hand. He talks with his hands a lot, she notes. Gesturing with those thick, long fingers and waving them around emphatically. 

“My mother told me that legend before bed when I was a kid. I always thought those stories were silly but… how does the saying go? Life imitates art, right?” He laughs bitterly when he says this and she notes that too. Yes, he _is_ an onion and every layer is significant. Like the rings of a tree. “You should call them that if you’re looking for a name.”

“Why?” she asks, genuinely confused. That name doesn’t seem to fit with those creatures at all but maybe he sees something she doesn’t. 

Wouldn’t be the first time. 

“Ayashe was supposed to be big. Some say he was a bear and others a horse. Those things pretty much look like walking teddy bears so… it’s as good a name as any.”

She doesn’t think he told her that story simply to give her an idea for naming them, but she doesn’t quite dare to say that out loud. 

“Ayashe, then. I… like it.”

They regard each other silently under the muted kitchen light and she has to ground back a smile. 

Trust. This is trust, she thinks. Or what could be trust. Between them. 

They pass the rest of the day in comfortable silence and she logs the name into her scanner. Later on, when she takes the first watch, she makes a new entry for Ben and stares outside for several hours linking all the ways that story could possibly relate to his life. 

*

Exhausted from the day’s worries, Rey falls deeply asleep after her first watch. She has her gun under her pillow and clutches the cold metal almost as tightly as her pillow. She is so deep under that she doesn’t understand what is happening when sometime later, something warm and hard surrounds her body in a familiar tide of birch and vanilla. 

“Ben?” she mumbles incoherently. His shirt is soft against her skin and she’s _so_ tired, so she snuggles closer and very nearly falls back asleep. 

“ _Rey. Wake up.”_

It’s so much like her dream that she’s convinced she’s still asleep. 

Then, he says her name again and it is just a puff of air on the crown of her head, but there is something urgent about it that makes her perk up a little. She’s moving, even though she knows that can’t be because she is still half asleep. Her hips shift and she moans in discomfort, but then that puff of air returns to her hair. 

“ _Shhhh_.”

A cold chill races up her spine. 

Her eyes snap open but before she can struggle out of what she realizes is _someone’s_ arms, their grip tightens and she belatedly realizes it’s _Ben_ who is carrying her. 

But why? What is going on? Where are they?

“ _Shhh,_ ” he repeats and she can feel his heart beating against her cheek as fast as the fox-trot. 

There are a million questions flying through her head, but she doesn’t ask because his scent has shifted. It’s pennies and petrichor and she suddenly knows he’s terrified because she can feel it in the back of her head. 

Only this time it isn’t a tickle; it’s a fucking hammer. 

The house is cast in darkness, yet he navigates them through the living room without a sound, to where he brings them to the basement door. She reaches out without him having to ask and tries to open it as quietly as possible. 

The door creaks and they both stiffen against one another, and god, she doesn’t understand what’s happening, or why he’s bringing them to the basement in the middle of the night but - 

There is a sound. It’s hollow and metallic. Almost like a thump of weight. 

The bathroom - Rey realizes that it’s coming from the bathroom. From the _tub_. Ben adjusts her weight in his arms and then he swings her sideways, edging into the black basement as quietly as possible. She closes the door behind them and then they’re breathing together on the stairs, waiting to see if anything has heard them. 

“ _What’s happening_?” she breathes in barely a whisper. “ _Ben_ -”

“ _Quiet,_ ” he murmurs into her hair, only she wouldn’t have known he said anything were it not for the rumble in his chest. 

Once he’s satisfied they haven’t been heard, he moves quickly down the steps. He must not be wearing any shoes because his feet don’t make a sound. Or he just is that quiet. She reaches up to wind an arm around the back of his neck just to take some of the pressure off her bad leg and he makes some _sound_ at that; a low, chuffing grunt that he muffles by clenching his jaw. His gland - her arm slips against it and she would apologize under any other circumstances but _theyhavetokeepmoving_. 

She forgets about it almost immediately when more thumping goes off, this time over their heads. 

It’s musty down here, damp and dark. He crosses the room in pitch blackness, bringing them to what she soon discovers is the extra storage closet. They get the door open and he stoops down, settling her in the back near the shelves of food. 

“ _Okay,”_ he breathes at her, “ _You stay here and I’ll -”_

 _“What? No,”_ she whispers back in a hiss. “ _You’re staying here too._ ”

“ _This isn’t a discussion._ ” He sounds furious, but she doesn’t care. Whatever is upstairs, in their fucking _bathtub_ for Christ’s sakes, can’t be anything good. She grabs his arm and refuses to let go. “ _Rey, stop_ -”

They both go rigid when a horrible sound reaches their ears. 

Laughter echoes through the house upstairs; terrible, unending, _shrieking_ laughter. It’s them - the Laughers are in the house. _They’re in the goddamned house_. 

Up above them, from what sounds like her bedroom, something heavy smashes against one of the walls. She thinks it might be her bed. More banging and smashing fills the house, punctuated by chuckling, roaring laughter.

Rey barely staunches back a scream.

Her heart is galloping in her chest and her bladder feels hot and heavy. Beside her, Ben growls, low in his chest, but before he can take off, she reaches out blindly in the darkness and snatches his hand to yank him back. 

_Don’t go,_ she tells him - nay - _begs_ him. He can’t go up there. He can’t, those things will get him and she’s all alone down here and she’s going insane from the laughter. She starts painfully pulling herself up to her feet because she will tackle him if she has to. 

_Rey, let go! I have a gun -_

_Don’t leave me - please!_

She might be hysterical now. She’s never been so terrified in her entire life but the prospect of him leaving her alone down here is so much worse. The ceiling rattles when something heavy flies across what can only be the living room and crashes into the wall. Glass and metal clang and shatter; whatever is up there is tearing the shelter apart. 

_Rey -_

_Please don’t go! Please!_

Ben hisses between his teeth and then his hands are her under her arms and he’s lifting her up again, carrying her further into the closet. She can’t see anything and is entirely dependent on him, but he seems to know where he is going. Something hot hits her arm and she cries out, only for him to stumble away from it with a muttered curse. 

The water heater? That must be where they are. 

He places her behind him and she hears the sounds of gun’s safety disengaging. 

_Stay behind me,_ he tells her and she fists her hand in his shirt, gripping onto him tightly because he’s the only thing preventing her from flying into a panic attack right now. 

Suddenly, all the lights turn on in the house at once and the laughter abruptly stops. 

They both flinch at the sudden light. The furnace and water heater are in front of them as a partial shield. They have a good line of sight from here; the door is closed tight and they can see through the storage shelves. 

Ben releases another low growl and she can feel the way his body vibrates under her hands. She is shaking like a leaf behind him and wishes she had a gun with her. Even her crutch would be better than nothing. 

_I’m scared,_ she admits, though she had no plans of saying that, or anything else, out loud. 

He’s a wall in front of her, solid and strong, but his fear strikes her again, coiling around her like a second skin. 

_Me too,_ he whispers back, she thinks, but his voice is strangely soft and subdued. 

Then, the basement door opens and the sound of footsteps thump down the stairs, slow and purposeful. 

Ben tightens up, the gun raised towards the door and his grip steady. She closes her eyes and presses her face into his back like a kid hiding beneath the covers. He smells like soap and him, and it’s about the only comforting thing she has right now. He reaches back with his free hand, his fingers wrapping around the swell of her hip, though she doesn’t know if this is to brace her, push her away, or because he really is just as terrified as she is. 

When he doesn’t let go, she knows it’s the latter. 

_Ben,_ she whispers into his back, _what are we going to do?_

He squeezes her hip, his breaths leaving him in sharp pants. 

_Stay behind me no matter what._

There’s another bang above them, making them both jump and then they hear footsteps outside the closet, shuffling closer. They _know_ they’re down here. Tearing apart the house - it was all done to scare them. She doesn’t know _how_ she knows that, only that she does. Every hair on her body stands on end and she can see the same thing has happened to Ben; goosebumps riddle his arms and the back of his neck. 

Then, it hits them like a wall and they both choke on air. A strong, rancid smell fills the storage closet, like rotten eggs only worse. 

Rey gags and then Ben has backed them up, until she is squeezed between him and the wall. She reaches for his hand on her hip and winds her fingers through his, quivering so badly her teeth rattle together. 

The footsteps stop outside the door. It’s silent for a long moment. Neither of them breathes or moves, waiting on tenterhooks for what might happen.

Suddenly, something scratches against the door in one slow drag, screeching like fingernails on a chalkboard. 

Rey is not at all surprised to learn that she is crying. 

Then, it smashes into the door like a fist, over and over. Ben snarls and it’s not really words that reach her before he starts firing on the door - it’s only wood after all and the bullets will have no trouble going through. It’s more like a feeling, like a brush of eye contact with a stranger on the street when you intuit that the person will go left so you can go right. Only it’s Ben and it’s not eye contact but something else much more elemental - like fingers combing gently in her hair, but it's in her _head._

_Cover your ears._

That’s what he _would_ have told her, had he said it out loud, but he doesn’t. And yet, Rey does it anyways because she _knows_ that’s what he would have told her. 

The gunshots are loud and ringing. Wood showers the floor, exploding into the air with each strike of the bullets. The walls are fortified steel and concrete, so the shots are deafening, resounding throughout the closest like church clock bells. He fires eight times before he runs out of rounds, but she can’t hear the clicks of the empty gun because she can’t _hear_ anything. 

But somehow, she can still hear Ben. 

_Wait. Don’t move yet._

Rey listens to him, breathing harshly in the fallout as the ringing slowly fades away. She can hear again, just enough to know that there is no movement on the other side of the door. For the first time since she’s met Ben, his fingers are cold against hers. They are still holding hands, clutching onto each other in terror and desperation, like two children who have realized the house they’re living in is occupied by evil spirits. 

After a few minutes go by, she shifts behind him, but all it takes is a low grunt from him to still her. It’s dead - right? It must be. Can’t they check? Aren’t they safe now?

But Ben must hear something she doesn’t because he doesn’t relax. 

_It isn’t dead, Noomaya,_ he tells her, like she spoke her thoughts out loud and she chokes back a sob. 

_How do you know that, how -_

But she never gets a chance to finish because something impossible happens. 

The gun melts in Ben’s hand. There is no other way to describe it. The gun bursts into a black cloud of nothingness and disintegrates into the air.

Ben stares down at his hand stupidly, because solid objects like guns don’t just _disappear_ but then the doorknob to the closet turns and soon he’s snarling and growling, his back rippling with muscle and pure violence. 

_Ben,_ Rey rasps though she will have no memory of saying this later.

He lowers slightly, so his legs are bent like he’s preparing to pounce and when the door slowly swings open, the lights flicker off and on, illuminating a dark, shadowy and _massive_ figure in the doorway. 

Rey cowers against the wall even though there is nowhere else to go. 

The figure is smoky and without substance - just like what happened to the gun - and as it seems to draw back like the head of a snake, a dark and ancient power fills the room. It curdles in her stomach and that smell intensifies, strangling them both in rancidity. 

Loud, raucous laughter quakes the room - quakes them to their very bones. They’re going to die - Rey is convinced of it. This black scourge is going to do to them what it did to the gun and then they will be _a part_ of this thing; a blistering cloud of evil darkness. 

Just as it gathers itself into a large, black bloom of shivering smoke, a new sound breaks through the din. It’s like electricity, like an arc of lightning. The sound is meaty and organic and Rey realizes she’s heard that sound before. Out in the jungle, during the storm. 

White light - pure and total in luminescence - abruptly cuts through the smoke in a wild arc. It’s like someone has turned on the strongest spotlight possible and aimed right at the smoke. 

The blackness scatters and suddenly it isn’t laughing anymore, but _screaming_. 

Rey shrieks and there are hands gathering her close, arms folding around her body and pressing her face into warmth. Shielding her from blinding white light. She can’t think beyond those screams - the sheer rage and _pain_ that fills the room with malevolent fury. She holds on tight to Ben, her hip and leg searing in red hot agony as though she’s the one being torn apart. Tears cover her face as she clings onto him for dear life, pressed between him and the wall as they both cry out from the chaotic madness around them. 

And then, in a shiver of force both unknown and unseen, but felt like the virulent draft of a tornado, the screaming ends. The whole house shudders as though suppressing a chill and then it’s so jarringly quiet that it takes her a moment to realize that she’s still breathing. That her face is being pressed into sweat-damped skin. 

It’s Ben’s throat. 

She only knows this because she can feel him swallowing against her nose. She opens her eyes to his scent gland and feels his fingers in her hair, cradling him against him. Her hands don’t want to let go of his shirt but she makes them relax, just enough that he pulls his head back. Brilliant green eyes look down at her and she can see the disbelief there like he’s screaming it at her because it matches her own. 

They’re alive. Somehow, impossibly, alive. 

They have barely begun to turn back to the room when a shrill whine of familiar beeps greets them. BB8 bounds into the closet, whirling across the floor and beeping over them in frantic concern. Rey isn’t in the right frame of mind to respond and she couldn’t if she wanted to anyway because something else has entered the room with them. 

“Ben,” she croaks and tugs on his shirt for good measure. He keeps her pressed against his side and if he’s shaking just as bad as she is, neither of them comment on it. 

Together, they gaze up at the dark and furry form standing just within the doorway. It’s the large, dark creature from before - the one who saved Rey’s life from the fenrirs. The Ayashe, as Ben called them. Held in its hand is an archaic looking weapon that is a cross between a crossbow and a rifle.

That was what got rid of the Laugher - she is sure of it. 

Rey looks from the weapon to the Ayashe in numb shock. 

“T-thank you,” she whispers to it because she has no idea what to say, what to _think_. 

The Ayashe regards them silently for a moment before tapping its chest three times, like it did the last time it was here. 

And when it makes a guttural, rambling bark Ben’s fingers tighten in her hair and she leans her head against his chest, trembling with the relief of their survival.


	19. The Stars, The Moon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Why?” Rey doesn’t take her eyes off Chewbacca when she asks this, her voice low and quivering. “Why do we have to keep drinking the river water?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Clues! So many clues and Rey, slowly starting to figure some of these puzzles out. 
> 
> Next chapter will be a doozy as Ben falls victim to an unexpected fire... but not, like, literally ;)

They move like liquid, pouring through the jungle as though from an open artery. There is pain, roiling and blistering. There is disbelief. All is shared as they rive and scream in equal parts agony and rage. 

The Others are still alive. How is this possible? They killed Them. They saw Their villages burn and Their corpses rot under the sun. 

But They are alive. They used Their lightning arcs against them. 

Together, the Laughers shiver and coil, and consider roiling back to where the humans are and destroying them but… what if the Others are still there? What if They bring more lightning arcs? What if They teach the humans how to use them?

No. Best to stay put. They must protect the nests. 

There will come a moment when they will have their vengeance. When the tide of Their blood and screams is etched only as the most exquisite memory. When their skulls line their nests, informing their offspring and the generations of Laughers to come what happens when they are crossed. 

For now, it is time to feed them, their delicate little striplings. 

High-pitched whining and squealing fills the air the closer they travel to their nest and beyond, where others have not hatched yet. Bulbous, glittering ovals full of smoke black as pitch; an endless sea, incubating and readying to flood this planet in a biblical tide. 

To humans, like Rey and Ben, they would think of the harvest fields of earth. Of pumpkin patches, where vines connect from one to the next. Only, these are not pumpkins, but  _ eggs _ and they are vines connecting them together, but tenuous membranes, pulsating with nutrients and digested meat. 

Thousands upon thousands of them. 

*

Rey feels sick when she examines the damage to the house. 

The inventory of what they have left is bitingly small. The walls still stand. The roof is intact, the floor and foundations solid. There are still rooms - technically - if one considers a room something that does not have a door. The appliances, surprisingly, remain mostly untouched, and Ben fished her crutch out of the bathtub drain. 

These are the things that survived with them. 

Everything else has either been smashed into a million pieces (all of the windows, for instance), ripped off its hinges (the cupboards, the bedroom doors, the bloody  _ front door _ ), sullied with disgusting and ominous black goop (the couch cushions, most of Rey’s clothes, and  _ all _ of Ben’s linens), or piled in a sinister mound in the middle of the living room for them to find when they venture upstairs, like the Laughers want them to know they were here. 

As if they could ever forget. 

“I’ll clean this.”

Rey glances at Ben from where she has managed to find a single surviving kitchen chair. She is perched atop it and leaning her chin on the handle of her crutch, trembling with rage and fear, but mostly with disgust. 

The Laughers touched all their things. They ruined their home. 

She doesn’t know why that’s worse than almost being murdered in their basement. Maybe because there is a difference between  _ killing  _ something and  _ murdering  _ it. What the fenrirs did to her - that would have been killing her. Because they are animals and do not possess sentient intelligence. She would be food to them, or killed as a potential threat. Nothing more. 

And because, in order to murder someone, you have to  _ mean  _ it. 

The Laughers’ intention was always to murder them. Since the first night she heard their awful laughter in the jungle, this was what they had planned, in some fashion or another. To murder them. To  _ destroy  _ them. Unlike the fenrirs, they are intelligent creatures - if they even  _ are  _ creatures because that would imply that they are living organisms. 

Rey isn’t even convinced they’re solid at this point. 

What she does know is this - the desecration of their space and the ruin of their worldly possessions - this was just another type of murder to them. Perhaps, a more elemental kind of murder than simply ending their lives. Smashing their windows, soiling their things, and ravaging their home, their sense of  _ safety  _ \- that was all done solely to destroy them. 

Heart and soul. 

Knowing that they’ve survived the Laughers - at least for now - is not enough to staunch the flood of revulsion they both experience because these vile monsters went through their clothes, their  _ toothbrushes  _ and hair combs and all the little things that are so personal and thankless to everyday life, and...

It’s like being assaulted by them all over again.

Ben stands over the mound and she can tell he’s scenting the air again. All she can smell is  _ them _ . Rotten eggs and sulfur. She wants to puke but she already did that when they got upstairs. She doesn’t have anything left in her to puke up. 

“I can help. I want to help.”

Maybe if she takes away the scourge of their acrid scent,  _ maybe  _ if she can find a way to reclaim this space, then the trauma will not be so biting. 

Ben shoots her a glare that she knows isn’t really meant for her. “No. I said I will do it, so just -”

“Please don’t do this. Not now.”

She doesn’t want to deal with Angry Ben, or Brooding Ben, or worse yet  _ Alpha  _ Ben. He’s angry and he has every right to be, but she can’t take him flinging his ire at her. She  _ can’t _ . 

Ben finally tears his gaze away from the pile of their possessions and meets her gaze. She feels ridiculous that she’s fighting back tears, but she’s exhausted, terrified and a million other things. Surviving this planet was never going to be easy, but this…

“I’ll take care of this.” He gestures at the pile with a distasteful frown. “And the bathroom and my room.... Do you want to do the kitchen?”

She can’t remember the last time he asked her what she wanted to do. He always just orders her around - or  _ tries  _ to anyways. Not that she ever really listens to him. Maybe he’s finally learning that he needs to change his approach, or maybe he just wants to avoid her crying. 

“Sure.” She nods, not trusting herself to speak further, when BB8 comes rolling through what was formerly their front door. Now it’s just a hole in the wall. 

ϕ _ Madam Rey, the creatures -  _ ϕ

“Ayashe,” she corrects hollowly. 

Ben straightens up and looks between her and the droid, his eyes narrowed. 

ϕ _ Right, Madam Rey. The Ayashe would like to speak with you both. _ ϕ

She cocks her head at the droid in disbelief. “You can understand them?”

Φ  _ For the most part, Madam Rey. Their language is similar to an extinct dialect of Earth’s South America, the Aymara language. They share many of the same phonemic vowels -  _ ϕ

“What the hell is he going on about?” Ben barks. 

BB beeps irately but Rey shakes her head at them both with impatience. 

“BB can understand the Ayashe. But - can they understand you?”

Φ  _ I’m afraid not, Madam Rey. I have had to resort to drawing in the dirt to communicate with them. They are highly intelligent but do not possess modern technology. _ Φ

She quickly relays this to Ben and then goes to stand. “Alright, let’s go talk to them then.”

Then she doesn’t have to think about what happened. She doesn’t have to relive the horrors of the basement and the wreckage of the shelter. She has something else to focus on then. 

“Rey,” Ben growls and reaches out to stop her. “What about the goddamned house? Shouldn’t we -?”

“They just saved our lives,” she tells him quietly. “We owe it to them to at least speak with them. Besides, they might have information that can help us.”

He looks longingly at the pile before pushing out an irate sigh and facing her again. “Fine.”

BB leads the way and together they step outside, where the air is blessedly clearer and free of the Laughers’ putrid scent. 

*

Rey doesn’t know about an ancient South American dialect, but to her, the Ayashe’s language sounds like a cross between guttural barking, roughened gargling, and raspy chuffing. There are fewer of them here this time; only three compared to the dozen who showed up the first time.

The large one has its strange crossbow strapped across its chest, along with a studded, metallic sashe of some kind. It speaks to the other two who, while smaller than him, are no less fearsome in their own right. They each have a crossbow as well, though they do not appear overly concerned with being outside in the open. 

She wonders if whatever light they cast killed that one Laugher and if the others have been scared off as a result. She can only hope so. 

“What are they saying, BB?” Rey asks the droid, who is standing quite comfortably close to the Ayashe. 

Φ  _ I believe they are discussing the Laughers, Madam Rey. It’s difficult to tell, but they appear to be debating about leaving us one of their weapons.  _ Φ 

“Really?” Rey says with interest. 

Φ  _ I believe so, Madam Rey. Shyriiwook is difficult to follow, it involves -  _ Φ

“Shyriiwook?” 

BB beeps at her and nods its dome head. Φ  _ If I am not mistaken, that is the name of their language. Roughly translated of course.  _ Φ

“What the fuck is a Shyriiwook?”

Rey sighs and aims Ben a quick glare. He is sitting next to her on the steps to the porch and practically vibrating with impatience. 

“Their language. Now -”

“And what’s taking so long? They've been chatting over there for twenty minutes.”

“If you would let me finish my sentence for once, then you would know.” She receives Ben’s responding scowl with impassivity and when he doesn’t interrupt again she tries not to look too conspicuous as she nods her chin towards their crossbows. “Apparently, they’re debating whether to leave us with one of their weapons.”

He sits up straighter, all traces of impatience gone as he eyes their weapons eagerly. Whatever those crossbows are made out of, they’re extremely powerful. She’s not sure how the light works - if it is electricity, or created from some other source - but if they have one, then they might stand a chance if the Laughers return. 

“Alright. Then what’s the holdup?”

“I don’t know… maybe they don’t trust us?”

“Then why did they come back? Why leave us the water if they didn’t want to broker some kind of truce?”

She could almost throttle him right now because that is what she has been saying this entire time. But she lets it go. If he is finally willing to see these creatures as potential allies, then that’s one less thing she has to fight him on. 

“Speaking of…” Rey trails off when the largest Ayashe breaks off from the other two, carrying a couple of pouches in his hands. She thinks he (at least she’s pretty sure this one is a he) means to give it to her like all the other pouches they’ve been leaving her, but he stops a few feet away. 

Ben practically flies up off the steps in response but the Ayashe only eyes him with vague curiosity. 

“ _ Ben _ ,” Rey says in warning, but he’s already at the bottom of the steps and standing in front of her like the massive wall he is. 

She smacks a hand on her forehead and shakes her head. 

He’s still in it, she thinks; in the adrenaline of what happened in the basement and in Alpha Mode as she has come to think of it as. She remembers how he held her hand down there and how he cradled her against him right before the Laugher went to attack them. Like she was somehow worth saving to him - like she was worth risking his own life over. She finds it all baffling because she has never had anyone become so protective over her before. 

It must be a pride thing. It’s nice, she supposes, even if she doesn’t really know what to do with it, but by god, he needs to _relax_. 

Ben looks over his shoulder at her like she uttered this thought out loud, his dark eyes narrowed and his mouth quirked in an irritated frown. She gets caught up on that and the vague tickle at the back of her head that makes her think he  _ did _ overhear that thought, even though that’s impossible. 

But he turns away from her before she can attach more significance to it and she’s right back to being worried he’s going to do something hot-headed and Alpha-y. 

“She already drank it,” he says to BB without taking his eyes off the Ayashe. “Tell him that.”

BB gestures towards Rey and makes a seesawing motion with its joints. The Ayashe watches the droid do this for a moment before looking back at Ben. Without a sound, the Ayashe holds out the pouches to him and points from him to the water sloshing inside. When he only stares blankly back, the Ayashe does it again with more emphasis, making those trilling growling sounds once more. 

“I think they’re for you,” Rey suggests quietly. 

Ben’s shoulders tense and everyone seems to be holding their breath. Finally, he stiffly reaches out and takes the pouches from the Ayashe. Then, much to the disgruntled grunts of his cohorts, the Ayashe takes his crossbow off his shoulder and holds this out to him next. 

He flicks his gaze to the droid, his eyebrows raised. “This too?”

Φ  _ I believe so, Master Ben.  _ Φ BB replies and Rey murmurs her assent directly after.

Ben holds his hand out for the crossbow and after a considering pause, the Ayashe hands him this as well. The large creature speaks to him then, gesturing towards the crossbow and then to the pouch of water. 

“What is he saying now?” Rey murmurs to BB. 

Φ  _ Chewbacca - I believe that is his formal name Madam Rey - is instructing Ben on the use of the crossbow.  _ Φ

Ben seems to intuit enough of what BB is translating because he asks, “He wants me to use the pouches as ammo?”

But that doesn’t feel right to Rey. She gives the pouches of water a meaningful glance and rubs absently at her achy hip. 

“I think… I think you’re supposed to drink the water before you use it.”

The large Ayashe - Chewbacca, Rey supposes she should call him - looks past Ben to her and makes several insistent barks and growls. 

Ben stiffens on a low snarl. All three of the Ayashe, including Chewbacca, tense up and growl back at him, their body movements becoming distinctly agitated.

And Rey - well - she has had just about  _ enough _ of this 

She gets painfully to her feet and joins Ben’s side before he can stop her. He starts to say her name but breaks off when she winds her arm around his in a move that is not at all premeditated and somehow instinctual. Like the touch of her hand on his wrist might actually succeed in calming him down. Her fingers brush against something soft and bumpy on his skin and it isn’t until his sharp exhale that she recalls accidentally brushing his neck gland with her arm when they were fleeing from the Laughers. 

Without saying a word to him, she immediately moves her fingers away from what she presumes to be yet another gland on his wrist. But she keeps her hand on him. Just in case. 

Rey peers up at the Ayashe and makes slow, tentative movements with her hand when she gestures towards him. 

“Chewbacca.” She says his name slowly, hoping that she has not completely gutted the pronunciation. 

Chewbacca looks from her to Ben, grunting in a disgruntled fashion before his strange blue eyes return to her. He taps his chest three times; she thinks that might be a “yes”. She doesn’t bother asking BB for clarification - she just follows her gut, which is a fairly new concept to her, but one that she is rapidly becoming accustomed to. 

She smiles and nods, ignoring Ben when he shifts impatiently at her side. She points to her chest and makes sure the Ayashe all are fixated on her. 

“Rey,” she says, slowly. “I am Rey.”

Chewbacca peers down at her and she’s almost convinced that he doesn’t understand her when he makes a chuffing grunt. 

BB beeps excitedly, rolling back and forth on the ground. Φ _ Madam Rey, I believe he understood you. He is saying “Greetings” in his own language.  _

Rey beams at the Ayashe. 

Ben gives her a quick side glance, his eyebrow raised in his signature, haughty  _ we-are-not-impressed  _ arch, like he’s a royal monarch presiding over a court of unintelligible clowns. She pinches his wrist (taking care to avoid his gland) and raises her eyebrows at his aggravated hiss. 

_ Well?  _ she says with her eyes.  _ Go on, you big galoot.  _

With a muttered curse, he grunts, “Ben.”

“Ben,” she repeats, gesturing towards him and smiling despite his very unsubtle eye-rolling. Chewbacca aims a dubious glance his way and then taps his chest again. 

Well, this is progress she supposes. 

“We are very grateful - um -” Rey flounders for a second before reaching up and tapping her own chest. “ - for you saving us.” She taps the gun in Ben’s hand and then waves a hand towards the house. 

Chewbacca tilts his head at her and then releases a series of barks and trills she cannot remotely understand the meaning of. 

“Uh - a little help BB?” she mutters to the droid. 

Φ  _ I cannot translate all of it, Madam Rey, but I do believe Chewbacca is trying to warn you. _ Φ

“Warn us about what?” she asks, so Ben can follow their conversation. He tenses in her grasp once more and his aggressive glare fades away as he eyes the Ayashe with caution. 

BB listens to Chewbacca’s increasingly animated sounds and makes a couple of thoughtful beeps. 

Φ  _ He said they will return - presumably the Laughers, Madam Rey. _ Φ

“Well, I gathered as much. Can they tell us what they are or -?”

Φ _ Hold on, Madam Rey. Chewbacca has more to say. _ Φ

The other Ayashe approach tentatively, barking and whickering at Chewbacca before he turns back to them and gestures towards the jungle with a broad stroke of his furry arm. Rey watches him and unknowingly grasps onto Ben more tightly as her stomach furls into a tight ball. She doesn’t know what they are saying, only that a feeling is coming over her now. It’s like what comes after her nightmares, an omen of foreboding as heady as the jungle air. 

After Chewbacca finishes speaking, BB bleeps in a low hum of anxiety. 

“What?” Ben whispers to her. Her fingers are cold on his hot skin and it takes his fingertips brushing her hand for her to look at him. “What is it, Rey?”

She has a feeling he has been looking at her for a little while, that something in her scent has changed, or maybe just…  _ Maybe  _ it’s just that tickle in her head. Maybe she’s insane but it almost feels like he knows she senses what is coming, even if he doesn’t know what it is himself. 

“I…”

Φ _ The Ayashe have said that the Laughers are a part of the jungle. They live in shadows and watch from every tree. They hunted his people to near extinction and it was only after hiding for many years that they survived.  _ Φ

Rey regards Chewbacca gravely and he makes a soft noise, staring right into her eyes. 

“What else?” she asks the droid. 

Φ  _ They will return. Chewbacca was quite adamant about this. He said for Master Ben to drink the river water tonight and that you should send me to fetch more every fortnight with the rise of the full three moons. Only then will we be able to fight them.  _ Φ

“Why?” Rey doesn’t take her eyes off Chewbacca when she asks this, her voice low and quivering. “Why do we have to keep drinking the river water?”

At some point, Ben’s hand slips into hers and she clutches it gratefully. It’s just like it was in the basement, only now the threat is vaguer than ever. Like fighting smoke and glamors. Though he can’t follow exactly what is going right now, he must know enough because he hasn’t interrupted. Not even once. 

Chewbacca speaks one final time and it is only after the Ayashe have departed that she will tell Ben what he said. 

Φ _ Chewbacca says the water is protection. _ Φ BB informs her in a series of fretful beeps. Φ _ He says the water is life and death, and that you have been chosen.  _ Φ

But about the water, the Ayashe will say no more. 

They leave them shortly after the arrival dawn with a promise to return should they need assistance. They do not explain how they will know if they need assistance or not and Rey decides not to ask. 

No matter what she does, she cannot shake the terrible feeling in the hollow of her stomach. 

*

A week passes with little to report. 

BB fixes the windows first and then the front door, and Rey and Ben set about tidying the ruin the Laughers left behind. It’s slow work, but they manage to get the bathroom, kitchen, and living room cleaned. 

“I think we should sleep in the living room,” Ben says to her one night over a quiet dinner. 

That is all they have  _ been  _ since the Ayashe last visited. Pensive and withdrawn, the both of them. Apt to snip and cut at each other with their tongues as they stew in mutual anxiety and fear. Ben has decided to dismiss their almost prophetic message as either a mistranslation by BB, or as superstitious nonsense. 

Rey isn’t so sure. 

She’s the bloody scientist for crying out loud. She needs data and facts to back up any hypothesis, no matter how outlandish, but now…

“Why?” 

Ben raises his spoon of soup towards his mouth and then lowers it again. “Because those things came in through a window.”

“We don’t know that for sure -”

“ - yes, we do. I left the bathroom window open that night.”

“And  _ why  _ did you do that?”

“It’s - there was - that isn’t important,” he growls at her and tosses his spoon into his bowl, splashing the table with soup. “They came in through the window, alright? You saw how those fucking things move, they’re like smoke. If we sleep in here and board up the bedrooms, then there are less avenues for them to attack us. And if they  _ do  _ come in -”

“We’re in the same room and we can fight them together.”

By the way he grunts under his breath, she can tell this wasn’t exactly what he was going to say, but he chooses not to argue with her on it. 

“I’ll move the mattresses in here tonight.”

“I can help, you know -”

“No. Just… talk to the droid about getting the greenhouses set up. You’re the one who keeps worrying over our rations.”

Rey frowns at him. He’s been acting a little oddly ever since the house got trashed. He wouldn’t let her help him with the pile of crap in the living room, even though she finished the kitchen right after he did the bathroom, and some of that pile was  _ her  _ stuff. But he wouldn’t let her near it until it was almost tidied up. 

And now he won’t let her help with the mattresses - partly, she suspects, due to her hip - but she’s not totally inept. She can do things, albeit a bit more slowly. But that isn’t the whole reason. 

He doesn’t want her in his room. 

She doesn’t know why, if it is some Alpha thing or he just doesn’t want her scent polluting his space, but either way, she is a little suspicious. The look she is giving him now might convey some of this because he narrows his eyes at her. 

“Yes?” The word is clipped and pushed through clenched teeth. 

Rey regards him for a moment, chewing on the inside of her cheek. 

This has been their reality all week - chomping at the bit to start a fight with one another. Her misgivings about his room aside, he really doesn’t  _ need  _ to have a reason for her not to come in his room, just like she doesn’t need one either. She’s just frantic with worry that the Laughers will show up and to top it all off, Ben has been resistant about drinking the water. Even though she already offered herself up as a guinea pig. Even though he was more than happy to drink it back when she was convinced there were human-killing microbes inside it. 

He just has to be stubborn about this too, she supposes. 

“That’s… a good idea.” Ben blinks at her, not quite relaxing from his tense glaring, so she keeps going in the hopes that maybe tonight they can just have a quiet evening without fighting. “About sleeping out here. And I will talk to BB in the morning about the greenhouses. Just, um…”

“What?” 

Should she bring the water up now or just quit while she’s ahead? She blows out an errant breath and returns to her soup. 

“Your food is getting cold.”

Ben knows that isn’t what she meant to say. She waits for him to confront her over it and if he does, she  _ will  _ say something because they need to be ready for when those Laughers come back. She has no doubt in her mind that they will and if the Ayashe suggested that they need to drink it in order for the crossbow to do what it did for them well - it’s really a no-brainer to her. 

Instead:

“Fine. And while we’re on the subject of that bucket of bolts, tell him stop sneaking up on me. We were putting the slats on the fence this morning and he almost made me break my fucking foot. Scared the shit out of me.”

“BB snuck up on you?” Rey repeats doubtfully. 

Ben eats a spoonful of soup and when he looks at her, there is something uncertain in his gaze. “He keeps taking my temperature. At least, I think that’s what he’s doing.”

“Your _ temperature? _ ”

“Is there a fucking echo in here or -”

“Okay, okay. Jesus Christ,” she snaps and she almost loses it on him, but manages to stuff soup into her mouth in an effort to literally bite her tongue. 

“Well?”

She blinks at his surly tone and seriously considers throwing her spoon at him. 

“Well what?”

“Has he been doing that to you?”

Rey subsides with a puzzled frown and shakes her head. “No.”

“Just… tell him to stop it. It’s creepy. Reminds me of…” But Ben trails off and she can tell from his closed expression that he won’t finish that sentence, even if she tries to poke his eye out with her spoon. 

*

BB doesn’t admit to following Ben around and she almost writes the whole thing off as him being paranoid again but…

“BB… you would tell me if your programming started malfunctioning. Right?”

The droid cocks its head like she said something odd and then nods at her. 

Φ  _ Of course, Madam Rey. That is a safety feature of my programming.  _ Φ

“Great. That’s great.”

Φ  _ Is Master Ben feeling alright, Madam Rey? _ Φ

Rey frowns at the droid. “Yes… why?”

Φ  _ Oh, I only wondered because he asked me if I was programmed to fabricate linens. He does seem overly fond of blankets. Much like an Omega, really. Not to say Master Ben is an abhorrent, or anything horrible like that, even if he does share many attributes with them. It’s a shame the Laughers destroyed most of his linens. I am sure they are of great comfort to Master Ben. _ Φ

“I… guess so?” She doesn’t know what else to say and gives BB one final searching look before limping up the porch steps. 

The droid turns for the perimeter to finish up its work for the day and Rey watches it go from the doorway, biting her lip in thought. 

*

It turns out that sleeping in the living room together is a painfully awkward affair. 

Their mattresses are spaced on either side of the living room, straddling the couch. But they’re still in the same room. They’re still only ten feet apart. It’s… intimate and Rey does not really handle sharing her personal space with anyone - let alone Ben - all that well.

And it turns out he doesn’t either. 

She doesn’t realize how much she tosses and turns to get in a comfortable position for sleep until she hears him release an annoyed sigh after the sixth time she does it. 

He also takes  _ forever  _ to get into bed. Not to fall asleep, just to get  _ into bed _ . He has to arrange his blanket perfectly - a blanket which she gave him because all of his were destroyed - and only then will he get into the bleeding bed. Which sometimes takes several minutes and Rey is just so over it. 

She  _ might  _ make a snippy comment about it  _ once _ . Maybe twice. 

Then, there is the whole bathroom debacle. 

Every time she gets up for the bathroom, he wakes up. And it’s not that she is really concerned with him hearing her pee, but if she has to stay in the bathroom for a more prolonged visit, she doesn’t really want him to  _ eavesdropping  _ either. The living room is right outside the door, which is a real design flaw in her opinion. She tries running the tap during these more extended bathroom visits, only for him to ask her why she’s wasting their water. 

So, on the fourth morning of their shared sleeping arrangement, they argue about that very topic. 

“It’s a recycled water tank, Ben. The only way it would be a waste is if I was bailing water out the bathroom window to outside.”

“The tap is loud. It’s disruptive to me sleeping.”

“Oh don’t play games with me. I know you wake up every time I get up.”

“And how the fuck would you know that?”

“You smack your tongue off the roof of your mouth - don’t look at me like that, you do. Like it’s a massive inconvenience to you that people have bladders.”

“Maybe I’m ready to go back to sleep by the time you lumber across the house to the bathroom.”

“ _ Lumber?  _ Excuse me, I have a bloody injury to contend with.”

“Yes, you do love to go on about that.”

“And besides, do I go around asking what you do in the bathroom?  _ No _ , I don’t. So mind your own business.”

“Wow, you really are a bitch in the morning.”

“Funny, I was about to say the same about you.”

*

There is also the fact that she snores. Quite loudly, according to him. 

“You sound like a goddamned fog horn,” he informs her over dinner. His hair is extra shiny again tonight, which only serves to aggravate her more. 

“Yes, well, your feet smell.”

They don’t, but he doesn’t need to know that. 

“ _ What? _ ” 

“Yes. They smell. Like sour porridge.”

He stares at her for such a long time, she has to fight not to squirm. 

“They do not.”

“The point is,” she quickly says, like he can’t see the lie written all over her face, “if they did smell - which I can assure you they do - that is not something you can necessarily help. So pointing that out to you would be  _ rude  _ and - and -”

“Mean?” he says disdainfully. 

“Yes!” 

Rey gets up from the table to put her dishes in the sink and he follows right after her, elbowing her out of the way from the sink so he can start washing them all. She doesn’t remember when he started doing that - maybe when her hip was injured - but he refuses to let her help do the dishes, even when most of them are hers. 

“I see.”

“Therefore, pointing out your smelly feet accomplishes nothing other than to hurt your feelings -”

“ - oh, they’re very hurt,” he assures in a mock wounded tone. 

“ - and it’s rude and -”

“- mean?” he supplies helpfully, leaning over the sink to grab the dish soap. His shirt rides up when he does this and she finds herself staring with a little too much avidness at the muscles of his lower back (because who’s lower back is  _ muscular _ ?). 

“-  _ and _ unhelpful.”

Ben turns off the water and leans his hip against the counter to regard her like he’s deep in thought. “So, what you’re saying is that I hurt your feelings when I told you that you snore louder than an air raid siren.”

“I believe you used the words ‘fog horn’.”

“Pretty sure I said jet engine.”

She narrows her eyes at him when she notices he’s smirking. “I don’t like fighting with you.”

His smirk widens and she has to look away at the mysterious flutter in her chest. 

“Could have fooled me.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“You’ve been picking fights with me all week,  _ Noomaya _ .”

“I’ve been - you are -  _ you’ve  _ been picking fights with  _ me _ ! And I told you not to call me that!”

He laughs. At her.  _ Laughs _ . 

She grinds her teeth together with a very unladylike growl. 

“You know what your problem is?”

His gaze flits from her red face, to where her arms are tightly folded together in front of her chest. It’s a defensive stance she’s employed since she was a kid and one that Commander Akbar tirelessly lectured her over. The habit was almost impossible to break and Ben has brought it back into full force once more. 

“Well, I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”

Ben’s eyes twinkle and if she didn’t know him better, she would say he looked downright mischievous. 

“You need to relax.”

Her jaw drops like he just told her the entire trip to this planet has all been a dream. 

“Relax?  _ Relax? _ If you haven’t noticed, we’ve been under attack from the moment we got here and -”

“Shhh, you’re making my damned brain bleed from your shrillness,” he says, but he’s still smirking and she wants to be angry with him, she really does, but this  _ almost  _ feels like them before the Laughers showed up. “I know all that, I’ve been here the whole time, remember? Just - take a fucking breath, okay? I’m not saying all that stuff has just gone away. We still need to be vigilant and all that shit but - we know the Ayashe are close by -”

“- oh suddenly you’re pals with them - “

“-  _ and, _ ” he emphasizes at her interruption, “the fence is almost up. When those things come back, the droid is here this time. He knows to set off about a thousand fucking alarms in the jungle so if those things  _ do _ come back, they will make a ton of racket and alert anything within a 100 kilometer radius that they’re here. We have the crossbow -”

“ - you still haven’t touched the river water -”

“I drank it.”

Rey stares up at him blankly. “You… did?”

“Yes.”

“All of it?”

“I drank enough.” 

Was it after their first really bad fight over it, or the second or third time? 

“When?”

“The point is,” he all but growls and she notices then that he’s stepped closer at some point because she has to tip her back to maintain eye contact with him, “you can’t live every moment tied up in knots about this shit.”

Rey is flabbergasted and it shows. “That’s rich coming from you.”

“Hey, just because I can take my mind off it for two seconds doesn’t mean I’m not alert to what’s going on. If you remember, I carried your ass downstairs when those things got in here and you were still asleep. Practically snuggling into my chest -”

“ _ Okay _ ,” she cuts him off, annoyed and a little embarrassed. “But… how?”

“How what?” 

“How do you take your mind off of it?” 

Because she might sound a little desperate now. Because whenever she closes her eyes, all she sees is evil black smoke and Ben’s voice whispering in her hair to  _ stay behind him _ . 

He closes his mouth and then tilts his head at her. Then, before she knows what he is doing, he raises a finger at her and says, “Wait here.”

Bemused, she watches as he walks off to his room and takes down some of the makeshift boards they slatted across her room and his room when they closed those parts of the house off. He comes out a moment later with something small and rectangular in his hand. Brushing past her in a gale of his sweet scent, he goes to the island and sits there, waiting for her to do the same. 

She stares at what she  _ thinks  _ is in his hand and then back at him. 

“Are those cards?”

He takes them out of their box and shuffles them with a flourish. They’re ornate, she notices. Not paper like the flimsy and rare decks that floated around the bunkers, but made of a flexible plastic of some kind. They’re decorated in gold and green leafing with beautiful illustrations on their faces. 

“Do you play Sabacc?”

“Um. No.” She’s never even heard of it and she finds herself hobbling over to the island and tentatively seating herself across from him. 

His shirt is dark forest green and it makes his eyes almost hazel in the yellow kitchen light. She likes the colour on him and doesn’t at all linger at the way the sleeves cling to his absurdly thick arms. 

“My father taught me. This game was about the only thing he could spare me five minutes for. ” 

Rey tries not to look too startled by this confession and puts her hands on the table in limp repose. 

“I don’t remember those cards listed as part of the ship’s cargo.” 

Ben pauses as he deals them in. “They weren’t.”

“But I thought your pack was on Falcon 8?”

His jaw clenches and she’s afraid she might have ruined his good mood. Because he is in a good mood, despite everything. And he might be  _ trying _ . Just a little, right now. 

“My pack wasn’t. The suppressants were.” 

“Oh.” Well, she didn’t even know his pack was here. But then again, he won’t let her into his room, so...

He waits to see if she will say anything else, and when she doesn’t, he gestures towards her hand. 

“Right. So Sabacc isn’t just a game,  _ Noomaya _ .”

She scowls at the nickname as she picks her cards up. “It isn’t?” 

His eyes are doing that thing again - glittering like precious stones. “Hm. Well, good thing you have no idea what the cards mean, otherwise you would have lost already.”

“What? Why?”

“Have you ever heard of a tell?” He doesn’t wait for her to answer because he must know she doesn’t based on the look on her face. “When you get your cards, you don’t react. You don’t give anything away or you have already lost. When you  _ do  _ react, that’s called a tell. For some people, it’s more subtle - like an eye twitch - and for others…”

She scowls at the implication, but he goes right on smirking at her with his little shit-eating grin. 

“Alright, Mr. Smug. Tell me how to play already.”

“The goal is to win the Sabacc pot by collecting a hand with an absolute value closest to 23, but no higher.”

“Well, we don’t exactly have money here, so…”

“Why don’t we just play for practice tonight? Then we can start betting.”

“Betting what exactly?”

“Oh, I can think of a few things.” 

She thinks he’s just being arrogant and maybe a little playful as well. It’s just so strange because he doesn’t really  _ do  _ playful. At least not with her. Coupled with his teasing smirk and the depth of his voice when uttering those words, there is a shift in the air that has her meeting his gaze head-on in challenge. 

And when they’ve played five, then ten, then twenty-five rounds and it’s gotten so late, but they still haven’t noticed the time passing, she thinks she might know his real reason for teaching her Sabacc. 

She doesn’t think about the Laughers once. Not until they turn in for bed and by then, she’s so worn out from trying to beat Ben at the game (and failing miserably) that she falls asleep almost immediately. 

*

“This feels different.”

“You always say that.”

“Do I?”

The horse says nothing in reply to this and simply looks out across the field. She doesn’t know what they were talking about before, but that’s not unusual. She often comes to in the middle of these dreams. 

They’re not on the ship for one thing and she can’t help but be relieved. In fact, this almost feels peaceful. Wind weaves through the surrounding elms and birches, scenting the air sweet and earthy. Organic with life. They’re on the farm; the same farm she came to as a kid. The same farm she and this horse fled from in a deathly fever dream. 

But it feels safe now. Purged of darkness and fear. 

“I think I know who you are now. Or at least who you’re supposed to be.”

“Good for you.” 

His sarcasm doesn’t bother her anymore. It’s just a smokescreen most of the time anyway. 

“Why are we here?”

“Is that a philosophical question?”

“No?”

The horse whickers at her and allows her to pet its massive black head, fingers parting through its soft mane. 

“It’s not going to be like last time.” She looks at the horse in surprise and is bemused to notice that she’s wearing a dress. Long and flowing, and dark forest green. It’s a good colour though she can’t remember why she likes it so much. 

“What isn’t?”

“Ishkode.”

Rey’s brows wrinkle. “What does that mean?”

The horse turns its dark eyes towards her and it seems to look right through her then. “I told you once before about the moon. Do you remember?”

“I…” but the dream is slipping away from her now, losing all substance. 

“...it’s coming again. Rey, watch for the -”

*

A warm hand settles on her shoulder and jostles her again. 

Rey opens her eyes and stares up at what can only be the frowning face of Ben. She blinks at him, groaning at being woken up. Only for her to blink up at him in shock and sit straight up in bed. 

“Holy shit - _ Ben _ -”

“You were doing it again,” he murmurs in a voice scratchy with fatigue. His brow is lined with sweat and his cheeks are rosy red. “Muttering in your sleep about a horse -”

“Are you - you look  _ terrible _ .” 

He bounces back on the balls of his feet and there is something unsteady about his gait. This giant lumbering man is often so quiet and graceful, she often thinks of him like a feline. Now, though, he barely looks like he can stay on his feet. 

He was fine last night. Totally fine. He shouldn't be cycling this fast. And now - his scent slams into her like a brick wall. He’s definitely sick again. It’s worse than last time. 

“I’m just tired.”

“Bullshit. Look, I know you don’t want to talk about it -”

He makes a colourless sound and turns on his heel for the kitchen. 

“- but there must be something I can do to help.”

Ben stops by the island and goes utterly still. Like her words have somehow hit an off switch in his body and he’s shutting down. 

“Ben?” 

She pushes the blanket off her and yanks her legs over the side of the mattress. She stops before she can stand up because he’s turned just his head back towards her so she can make out the profile of his face. 

“You can’t.”

“What?” 

She heard him, her brain is just detonating a little because of how rough his voice has gotten. Like his morning gruff - which she does not at all find attractive, of course - but much darker. 

“You can’t help me.” His broad back expands on a breath and she notices then that his shirt is clinging to him. He is absolutely drenched with sweat. 

“But… why?” she breathes. 

He still hasn’t turned around and she breaks out into goosebumps even though she doesn’t understand why. She feels like she is missing something important here and he won’t tell her what it is. 

“Just... go back to sleep little Beta.”

_ Little Beta _ . 

He resumes course to the kitchen and as she watches him go, she rubs at her chest, noting that conspicuous flutter again. She shivers and decides the best course of action is to give him space. Maybe to give herself some space too because he smells  _ really  _ good - like criminally good - and with his hair all wild and shiny, and his soaked clothes leaving little to the imagination, she just… She just needs to go. 

And if her shower is on the colder side this morning, no one ever needs to know about that. 


	20. Ishkode

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Her feet leave the floor and a gasp tangles in her throat, raw and heated and surprised. 
> 
> Before she can even register that she has moved, or been moved more aptly, Ben has pinned her against the bathroom door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have another, she said, giggling like a little school girl because it's BEGUN. Hehe ;)
> 
> Little bit of a cliff-hanger here, but who am I kidding, that's what I live for apparently. Happy reading lovelies <3

Rey does not dream the next night, or the night after that. The lack of nightly equestrian visitations feels ominous, somehow. Like a prelude to disaster. 

She sits by the window in the living room, watching a rare spell of rain wash away the world outside. She glances at Ben every so often, at how he lays on his mattress with face pressed into his pillow and his sweaty back turned to her.

And how his gland is bright red and gleaming. 

She’s scared for him. For both of them. What if the Laughers show up? They have the fence up - yes - but smoke doesn’t really concern itself with things like walls and fences. Ben has only practiced with the crossbow a handful of times, but the arc of light it was produced was weak compared to when Chewbacca used it. 

She would like to test it out herself only - she’s a little scared of that weapon. She doesn’t like guns. She likes life and guns have never been very conducive to life, in her opinion.

But they need weapons and as far as she is concerned, the Laughers do not really constitute as living things. 

They’re evil. Which is not scientific or logical, but they are. Maybe they weren’t always this way, or maybe they were - all she knows is this a really bad time for Ben to fall ill. 

As the rain patters on the windowsill, freshly cocked and sealed by BB only days ago, she watches Ben shift in his troubled sleep. She fiddles with the gun in her holster, finding its cold, dead weight comforting. 

*

“...with the fence done, we’re really going to want to focus on the greenhouses. I’m thinking here and here. Maybe one along the southern wall.”

Rey halts in her survey of the compound grounds to wipe sweat from her brow, with her crutch hefted under her left arm and her holster digging into her sides. She needs to readjust the damned thing but she’s too nervous to take it off for that long. 

It’s been raining on and off for the last few days, which has only made the humidity worse. She wonders if there is a wet season on this part of the planet and is thankful they decided to make camp at the top of a mountain. 

They really don’t need to contend with flash flooding on top of everything else. 

Φ _Is Master Ben’s shelter not being constructed anymore?_ Φ

Rey pauses by the fence to glance at BB, her scanner in one hand as she makes notes on the positioning of each of the greenhouses. She honestly hasn’t thought about she and Ben’s original agreement in some time. Between the fenrirs, the Laughers and everything else they’ve been contending with, it completely slipped her mind. 

“Well - I’m not sure. I’ll have to talk to him about that.”

 _If he’s awake long enough,_ she thinks but does not say. She left him inside today to rest. He won’t let her make him any food and he’s barely drinking any water at all. He’s in far worse shape than last time and she doesn’t know what to _do_ for him. 

BB beeps thoughtfully. 

Φ _I believe it would be beneficial to have separate living quarters. For your relationship of course._ Φ

For some mad reason, Rey blushes and looks away from the droid. 

She keeps thinking about it anyways, about Ben’s roughened voice calling her _Little Beta_. It’s not something he’s ever called her before - well, aside from his stupid _Noomaya_ she supposes - and she isn’t sure how she feels about it.

“I thought Ben and I were getting along okay.” 

BB makes a few dull beeps and she turns back to him so fast, she’s almost dizzy with it. It’s not quite the same sound he made when she asked him about the war. Not quite, but eerily close. 

Φ _It’s best not to cohabitate. There are risks involved._ Φ

“Do you mean Ben?” 

She can’t help but sound incredulous. Sure, in the beginning she didn’t trust him - they had even, on a few occasions, gotten physical with one another - but those days are behind them now. She might even call Ben a friend - not to his proud Alpha face of course, though she _might_ have called him that once or twice in her scanner logs. 

Φ _I’m only speaking out of protection for you, Madam Rey._ Φ

BB doesn’t sound right. It’s cheerful little beeps are gone. 

Rey smiles uneasily at the droid. “Well, I think that’s a pretty archaic viewpoint. I trust Ben to stay in the house with me. If he wants to, that is.”

Φ _Ah. So your relationship has become sexual in nature._ Φ 

“ _What?_ ” Her face flames brilliant red as she gawks at the droid. “I - we aren’t - BB, that’s an _incredibly_ personal question. We _aren’t_ \- but that’s - you shouldn’t ask people things like that.”

Φ _Apologies Madam Rey. I am only following my programming to protect you._ Φ

That’s the second time BB has said this and her blush fades away as she eyes the droid critically. He makes some clicking sounds and turns its dome head back to regard the house. And then he just… goes on staring at the house, without moving or speaking. 

“BB?” She says tentatively. 

The droid turns back to her and straightens up as though caught unawares. She unconsciously does the same and takes a small step back. 

Φ _Sorry, Madam Rey. There are a few subroutines in my program that have been glitching off and on for several days. I’m trying to manually repair them on my own, but I’m afraid my efforts are not working._ Φ

“What kind of subroutines?” 

BB makes a sudden twitching motion with its right arm and she has to stop herself from backing away further. She’s never seen the droid act this way before - well, except for that _one_ time weeks and weeks ago. 

With a hollow clank, the droid whirls his head a few times as though to shake it. Just like it did the first time. 

Φ _They are old programs from before the war._ Φ

“Wait - you were built all the way back then?” she asks in surprise. 

Φ _Yes, Madam Rey. In 2088._ Φ

That was the year she was born. 

“And… you still have subroutines from that time?” 

It’s creeping up on her - that feeling of dread. If BB was built all the way back then and Ben is right about droids being used in the war against ahhorrents…

BB beeps shrilly and then shakes its head again. 

Φ _After the war ended, a suppressor program was installed in my mainframe, along with all other protocol droids. It seems the jungle’s humidity might be dampening my sub-processors. I believe I am beginning to malfunction._ Φ

Her stomach drops like a stone. “Oh - BB, what can I do to fix this?”

BB twitches again, more violently than last time. 

Φ _Deactivation is -_ Φ The droid cuts itself off again and then its light flickers back to normal. Φ _Oh, sorry Madam Rey. I did not see you standing there. Would you like more toast with your eggs?_ Φ

She stares up at the droid for a long moment, feeling cold and fearful. He asked her this before, too. When she was eating porridge that morning. If BB has begun to malfunction and he has programming from before the war - programming that could very well endanger Ben’s life - then…

She might have to consider deactivating him. 

“Um… no thank you.” She tries to smile but it feels all wrong on her face. “I’m going to head back inside.”

Φ _Alright Madam Rey. Shall I begin construction of the greenhouses?_ Φ

“Yes. Do that, please.” She hobbles off, but stops near the porch steps and turns back to the droid. “And BB - why don’t you stay outside today? Ben and I can handle the house for now.”

BB clicks again - she can hear from where is standing - and then nods its dome head. 

Φ _As you wish, Madam Rey_.Φ

*

Rey doesn’t know the best way to go about waking up a sick Alpha. In the past, sticks proved most effective, but she has a feeling Ben might not appreciate the effort. 

“Ben?” she whispers. She shakes his shoulder gently. His skin is blistering under her hand and she has to suppress the feeling that summons. They don't really touch each other. Except in the basement, except when they were about to die.

Rey shakes this memory and taps his shoulder again. 

“Ben - I need to talk to you. Wake up, Sasquatch.”

He turns towards her, his eyes closed and moving beneath each bruised lid. 

She presses a little harder on his shoulder, seating herself on the far edge of the bed. She doesn’t want to disturb his odd blanket arrangement. The blanket isn’t even _on_ him, just rolled up in an oval around his body. With the way he has turned on his side, her wrist almost brushes against his ear and cheek. 

Rey nudges him again, whispering his name a little louder, when he breathes out a word too quiet for her to hear. 

“What? Come on, big guy. We have to ta…lk…”

She kind of trails off like that, her eyes bugging out of her head when Ben murmurs that word again – a word she can now make out as _Noomaya_. He lifts his head, his eyes cracking open in the tiniest slivers to brush his nose across her wrist.

Rey sort of locks together into a human statue.

Is this – can it – is he _nuzzling her wrist?_

She stares down at him and she doesn’t know why she doesn’t say anything to snap him out of it because he’s clearly asleep. He has no idea what he’s doing - he might think she’s someone else for all she knows. Though he did say _Noomaya,_ so unless he calls someone else that…

An unexpected flare of jealousy goes through her. 

It’s ridiculous. She doesn’t even _like_ that name. 

Despite her misgivings, she doesn’t move her hand away, doesn’t move or speak when he delicately sniffs her wrist. She can’t really _think_ because his scent was already overwhelming, even if she is starting to get used to it, and now –

Now it’s like sunshine after a long winter. Like a rainfall after a drought. Like warm hugs and comfort and though it’s still sweet – still creamy vanilla frosting – it’s softened just enough that she almost feels lulled by it. She can’t describe that feeling in any other way because she came in here shaking from her talk with BB and frightened over the prospect of even considering the droid as a threat, and yet his _scent_.

What the hell is happening to her?

Ben kind of nudges her arm so that her wrist drops closer to his face and he presses his nose there, ever so gently. And Rey just… lets him do it. She can’t even think of pulling away. He’s comforted by it. She can feel that solace like it’s her own and isn’t that strange? That she somehow knows she has provided him with a small measure of respite.

“…I dreamed of you…”

Rey pulls in a sharp breath at the way his lips brush her skin.

“You did?” She speaks barely above a murmur, all her worries over BB8 temporarily forgotten.

“Yeah,” he breathes and he must be still asleep, or very close to it, because he sounds almost childlike with exhausted bemusement. “I thought it was you. Before. Now I know.”

“You thought…?”

“Little fox, following me around. Pretty annoying.”

She laughs faintly, but mostly she’s still in shock. 

His eyelashes are resting against his cheeks and she’s reminded of the horse again. He looks almost peaceful right now – the most peaceful she has ever seen him – and she relaxes a little, sinking into the mattress at his side. She almost feels like she needs to stand guard over him, to protect this giant, fragile thing from the warring world and its indifferent cruelties. 

“You’re a horse for me. I think.” Because she doesn’t know what else to say. 

“...mmph.”

Which, really, sounds about right. 

It’s a little awkward, holding her wrist above his face, but she keeps it there. Not to fulfil her own curiosity about how warm his breath is against her skin, or anything like that. Just to – help him? She thinks she is helping him. She thinks her heart is doing strange things in her chest too, but she isn’t going to focus on that right now.

She might brush her fingers through his hair, right by his temple. Just a little. Her mother always did that for her when she was ill and though she can’t remember her face, she can still feel her cool fingers along her scalp, soothing the ache away.

Ben makes a breathless sound when she does this, his mouth muffled into the pillow.

“The water… fucks with my head. Don’t like it.”

Rey shushes him and combs her fingers through his hair more confidently. That feeling in her chest sharpens with empathy, with shared emotion. 

“The water fucks with me too,” she whispers to him, “but I think it might be helping us.”

“You already told me that.”

She didn’t, but she thinks he might be talking about his dreams again. Where she is apparently an annoying little fox of all things. They will have to talk about this later. About why they are dreaming of each other as animals and what the dreams even mean. About the water and all the other things that are changing. 

“Ben,” she murmurs suddenly. She remembers the word the horse told her and tries to summon its pronunciation. She leans in a little closer to whisper it to him. “What does ‘ishkode’ mean?”

It’s like she’s cast a spell on him. Or something far less pleasant. 

In one moment, they are sharing this quiet moment together, with her fingers in his hair and his dreamy voice raspy with sleep. And in the next, he has suddenly grabbed her arm or her shoulder, or _something_ because he’s no longer sleeping and she’s no longer sitting on the edge of the bed. 

Distantly, she hears her crutch clatter to the floor, but it’s like it happened on a distant moon. She blinks at his wild green eyes, now opened wide and fixed on her. Only they are inches apart now and she can barely maintain eye contact without her eyes crossing. His body heat seeps into her skin and it’s harrowing, but not nearly as harrowing as the expression on his face. He has dragged her halfway across the bed and though there is pain in her leg from the sudden movement, she doesn’t make a sound. 

She just stares back at Ben in rude shock. 

“Where. The _fuck_. Did you learn that word?”

She is supposed to form words right now. Maybe. Probably. But she can’t because he’s practically got her in his lap and though they are both sitting up, with his hands clenched tightly around her biceps, she realizes that she hasn’t been this close to another human being in a very long time. 

“ _Rey_.” He’s using that voice again. That dark, guttural growl. 

“What word?” Is that her voice? Why is it so high-pitched? 

“That - the fucking word you just said.” He shakes her a little and she finally comes back to herself just enough to scowl at him. 

“Let me go, you ars -”

“- tell me right now. Was it the droid? I knew that fucker was following me around for a reason.”

“What are you talking about? Would you let go of me and -”

“- Rey -”

“ - acting like a nutter and - _damn_ you’re strong -”

She splays her hands on his bare chest, her cheeks bright red as her fingers slip in sweat. She is really trying to push him away - she _really_ is - but her brain sort of short circuits when she feels how _firm_ his chest is. Like pads of pure marble beneath her fingertips. 

“ - tell me where you learned that word. _Right now_.”

“ - would tell you but you’re _hurting_ me.”

He lets go of her so quickly she almost falls the rest of the way into his lap. They stare at each other for one shell-shocked moment, their faces so close together their noses brush, and then she is scrambling backwards so quickly, she almost falls off the bloody bed. 

Ben hisses and swings his legs over the other side to stand. 

Rey manages to get to her feet and before he can storm off to the bathroom, she limps into his path. He pulls up short, like even getting within five feet of her is reprehensible when he had no problem plastering her to him two seconds ago. 

“Move.” He sways on his feet like he’s drunk. She eyes him with concern, only for him to scowl. “I said _move,_ Rey.”

“I heard it in my dream!” she exclaims at him so loudly, she startles even herself. 

Ben closes his mouth with an audible click. 

“I didn’t know what it meant so I thought I’d ask you.”

And just like that, he goes right back to being irate with her. “Was that before or after you started petting me like a dog?”

She blushes all over again and crosses her arms in front of her chest with a haughty sniff. “I don’t know Ben - was that before or after you started _nuzzling_ my wrist?”

They both go silent after that, glaring daggers at one another in awkward silence. She toes at the carpet where it has started coming up, her arms crossed so tightly, her ribs burn at the stretch. 

The muscles in his chest and jaw keep jumping; she glances at the motion and then back at him. 

“I wasn’t petting you.” She sniffs again and she might be looking down her nose at him, if only to mask just how unsure she is right now. “My mother used to comb my hair when I was sick. I was… trying to be nice.”

Kind of. Mostly. 

Ben endures this - well, she wouldn’t say passively with the way he’s all tense and angry, but he isn’t trying to shove her out of the way either. 

“Fine. Whatever just -”

“You’re really sick this time. Aren’t you?”

He looks away from her and swallows thickly. 

“Is it because of the moons?” 

She can tell from his expression that he remembers their doomed conversation about astrology as well as she does. It’s the only sane thing she can think of that would be causing him to get sick so often. 

"I don't know.” 

He still won’t look at her, which might be easier for them both right now. 

“I…” She hesitates, staring down at the floor with a flustered sigh. “What can I do?”

Stiff and robotic, he turns his gaze back to her. “Do?”

“Yes,” she says and she finally uncrosses her arms though the movement feels all wrong and jerky. “There has to be something - herbs, or medicine, or _anything_. If you’re cycling after only a week and a half -”

“Cycling?” he grunts.

“I don’t know what else to call it without offending you,” she admits quietly. 

He reaches up to scratch his gland and seems to catch himself because he drops his hand back to his side. 

“There isn’t anything. Not here, anyways.”

“Well, there has to be something, Ben. Maybe more river water -”

“That had no effect.”

Ah. That would be why he finally drank some of it. 

“Okay, then -”

“Rey,” he says tiredly. 

“No.” 

He looks at her blankly. “No?”

“I refuse to give up. You’re suffering and I know you don’t want to tell me what that entails, but there has to be some way for me to help you.”

He stiffens again, the same way he did the other morning when she initially offered help. 

“You… have no idea what you’re saying.”

“Is there something I’m missing here?” She looks genuinely confused which only seems to aggravate him more. 

“That _word_ holds more significance than you can possibly understand.” 

She glares her affront because she can too understand. He just won’t tell her. “What - do you mean _help_ or that other word I was asking -?”

“Just drop it Rey.”

“No, I don’t think I will. You’re very sick and I’m worried, alright? I want to help you -”

His muscles are jumping again and his hands squeeze into fists. Her gaze flickers at the motion, but she’s too focused on breaking through to him to notice these things. 

“You don’t know what that means so just _stop_.”

“Then _tell_ me what that means. I’m a big girl. I can handle it.” 

He shakes his head and mutters something under his breath too quiet for her to hear. And that’s when Rey discovers that she’s angry as well because this is just fucking typical of him, isn’t it? Before she can think better about it, she limps towards him and he whips back to her with a startled look. 

“Don’t - just, I’m going to shower -”

“You mean run away again. Why can’t you just tell me what’s going on?”

Ben backs away a step like _he’s_ scared of _her._ “Rey -”

“No!” She waves a trembling finger in his face and misses the way he’s shaking now. Like he’s barely restraining himself. “I’m not doing this song and dance with you for the next - let’s see - _rest of our lives_! You’re just being a stubborn ass as per usual. Whatever else you might have to say, you _need_ my help -”

The sound he makes is so desperate, so _pained_ that Rey breaks out into a thousand tiny goosebumps. 

Then, Ben is just a blur of movement, just like every other time he has jaunted across a room - whether to save her from a spill, or one time to catch a cup of her tea before it could fall to the floor - and really there are a million examples flying through her head, but when his hands close over her waist, she sort of forgets about all that. 

Her feet leave the floor and a gasp tangles in her throat, raw and heated and _surprised._

Before she can even register that she has moved, or _been_ moved more aptly, Ben has pinned her against the bathroom door. Pinned her there with the wall that is his body and his hair in her face and he smells so good and he’s so _warm_ and this is just sensory overload. She’s so damned surprised, she can only make a tiny, undignified squeak of sound. 

And then, they just stay like that. 

Her fingernails are digging into his forearms but he doesn’t seem to notice or care because his face is buried in her throat.

She goes very still beneath him.

Sudden movements feel like a bad idea right now - not that she is afraid of him, or that he would hurt her. It’s just something in the small, non-existent space between them, a heavy feeling of need and desperation.

Ben takes deep, heaving lungfuls of her scent, his nose pressed hard against where her jaw and neck meet. She can see his broad shoulders expanding and retracting, can see the way he quivers with each inhalation. 

She takes a moment to digest this, her breath leaving her in shivery gasps. 

His hands are large - she already knew this - and they hold her effortlessly in place, just above the swell of her hips. His fingers are firm and tight on her waist, his fingertips resting on the crest of her ribs. Like he’s feeling the way she breathes against him. They’re pressed together all over, his chest flush to hers where he can no doubt feel her heart slamming in her ribcage. And when she adjusts to take some pressure off her sore leg, she brushes against…

Rey can feel his groan all the way down to her toes. 

Her mouth falls open because holy hell, he’s _huge._ She shouldn’t be surprised. Not that she’s ever thought about it of course. About him and his - _never_. Not even scientifically. Not even once, wondering if he would be proportionate, but if she _did_ wonder about it, well…

Her hypothesis would have been correct. 

She doesn’t move again, though this might be more out of shock because that was quite a sound she made him make. Just by brushing against what can only be his very large and erect penis. When did that even happen? She would have noticed it before and now...

Rey starts trembling and Ben - he _rumbles_ against her, the sound deep yet achingly soft as his fingertips rub in soothing little circles on her ribs. 

And she finds that she can’t move at all. That she doesn’t really _want_ to move. 

“Ben?” she whispers on a rasp. 

“ _Shh_.” 

His lips skip against her skin and she shivers. She might move her head, just a little. To give him more room or just… to move it. When he speaks, he’s all low and dragging, like gravel and whisky and smoke. Heat curls in her lower abdomen, sharp and sweet like his rapidly blooming scent. His fingers press harder into her ribs, searing into her skin like brands. 

“Good. Good little Beta.”

She thinks she whimpers. Just a tiny little bit. 

But it’s enough to break the spell because suddenly Ben is not against her anymore, but panting for air several feet away. She pushes off the door, feeling light and a little dizzy. Her eyes dart down to the ridiculously prominent tent in his pants with absolutely no permission from her brain and - yes. He’s proportionate. 

Quite, at that. 

She doesn’t think her face could be any redder than if she stood outside in the sun all day without sunscreen. Even then, she might give UV light a run for its money.

“It’s…” she tries but her throat is too dry. _It’s okay_ , she wants to tell him because he looks _horrified_ now, though she can’t tell if it’s because it was her that he did this to, or because it happened at all. 

Ben shakes his head and turns away to fist in his hair in his hands. 

“I’m sorry.” He sounds strangled and it makes her want to _move_ but to where she doesn’t know. 

Rey finds her voice this time. She wants to reassure him. He didn’t know what he was doing - right? It was just a fluke that _she_ happened to be here when he lost control - right? She doesn’t kind of, maybe, absolutely want him to do it again - right?

Certainly not.

“It’s okay, really -”

“It won’t happen again.”

When Ben looks at her this time, it’s with such finality that all the pleasant warmth her lower stomach evaporates. 

“Of course.” She nods at him, not trusting herself to speak, and decides that fresh air is in order. So this time, it’s really her that runs away, but there is little reprieve to be found outside in the gloomy heat. 

*

It’s a hateful thing, discovering something so obvious about yourself that everyone else can see lit up like a neon sign and that took you so long to realize. 

She avoids BB when she goes outside and sticks to the back of the house. There are spare slats back there for the fence and other building materials. Her crutch thumps into the ground with her quick pace and she seats herself on a tree log she made Ben keep so that she could sit outside in the mornings and enjoy the sun. 

It’s raining. A light drizzle, or what her father used to call a “soft day”. An old Irish saying passed down on his side of the family. At least, that’s what she thinks. She never really knew her father well enough to ask. 

Her long locks are covered in tiny droplets, making her hair frizzy and unruly. 

Rey takes out the scanner and starts a new entry under Ben’s log. 

  * _I think the word “help” in the context of Ben’s illness might be triggering..._



She stops writing and looks up at the grey sky like she might find some courage up there. Her hands are trembling still and she can feel his nose on her throat. Can feel his deep groan when she brushed against his cock. 

“Fuck,” she grits out, closing her eyes as raindrops coat her skin in cool water. She should have noticed he was in distress, that he was about to do something rash because she was pushing him. At the time it felt important to do so; how could she have known he would react like that?

Rey pushes out a sharp breath and then returns to the scanner. 

  * _I think the word “help” in the context of Ben’s illness might be triggering… I know he cannot stand me. At least, not in a romantic way. He and I are friends - perhaps. I think we’re friends anyways, but I’m not really sure. We fight so much sometimes and he never agrees with anything I say… but I crossed a line today._


  * _It was an accident. I think it’s important to note that on some kind of record._


  * _I think the blankets are used as nests - that he finds comfort in them. I will speak to BB about making more. I was never good at sewing but there isn’t really a whole lot to do around here so maybe I can fashion him something._
  * _I… don’t know how I am going to go back inside. We still need to talk about BB and what we’re going to do when the Laughers come again. I am mortified. At least Ben has an excuse. His hormones, or whatnot, make him impulsive, whereas I..._



Rey stops writing.

She knows how that line of thought will end. She just didn’t want to acknowledge it before. She didn’t want to see what was staring her right in the face this entire time. 

The sad truth is that she is attracted to Ben. That she might even like him. 

When she first saw him, she had been blown away by the sheer enormity of the man. And then he tried to steal her ship. Then they were enemies and he became ugly to her; his perennial scowl, his surly demeanor, his hateful glare - all of it was rotten to her because she didn’t know him.

And now she does, a little. 

Now the curve of his lips is not a cause for diminishment but for her to wonder if they’re as soft as they look. His hair is not a point of envy (well, it _is_ ) but for her to imagine its texture. Its weight in her fingers. And there are just so many other things that she has catalogued about him in her scanner with painstaking care. His mannerisms, his laugh, the small things he shares and the larger things she is left to puzzle out. Sometimes, when he’s being decent and teaches her things like Sabacc, or listening to her theories about his superpowers, or even when he smiles at her in his not-quite-smiling manner - those are the times when she has to look away from him because he might see that shy, hesitant spark in her eyes. 

But he doesn’t feel the same way. He _can’t_ after what happened to his people and besides, she is a Beta and he is a - 

“What are you doing?”

Rey doesn’t turn around right away. She needs a moment, needs to gather the free and clear air around her before she can take him in again. She shivers from the cold and curses the way he moves, as silent as a slinking panther. 

“I like the rain.” She does, but that doesn’t really answer his question either. 

“You’re cold.”

She would like to know why he would care about that, but she thinks that maybe it’s not about the weather for him either. Sighing, she grabs her crutch, only for a shadow to fall over her. 

When Rey peers up at him, his hand is held out to her. 

She shouldn’t take it. Apparently touching him in any manner does stupid things to her brain. She takes it anyway and then she is pulled up and up, until she is on her feet again. They draw away from each other at the same time and she notes that his hair is soaked. Likely from that shower he was so hellbent on. He thankfully put a bloody shirt on as well. 

He looks like he’s going to say something he isn’t sure about and suddenly she doesn’t want to hear it. They are friends, or colleagues. Partners working together to survive. He doesn’t need her having a crush on him, especially when he’s sick. What he needs is someone to look for him and that’s just what she is going to do. 

And if she has to remind herself of that everyday, she will. 

“We need to talk about BB,” she says, breaking apart the atoms between them and that uncertain look on his face. 

He stiffens and then that emotion is tucked away. He still looks like he could sleep for a month, but he isn’t swaying on his feet anymore. 

“Can you?” she adds because she is trying to be considerate here. 

“Yes.”

With one last fleeting look, Rey turns on her heel to head back inside. Ben’s follows after her, a large loping shadow in her midst. 

*

They’re both awkward in their respective seats on the couch, their gaze flitting away from one another like hummingbirds to flowers. 

“Do you even know how to deactivate him?”

“I think I can get him to show me. He was about to tell me and then - his program glitched out again.”

“And you’re sure you didn’t say anything about me?”

“I swear it,” Rey says right away. She almost considers jokingly extending her pinkie finger but the moment feels wrong. 

Ben mulls this over for a moment and scratches at his glands, first one and then the other. She says nothing while he does this and rubs her hands together to warm them. 

“Did he say anything else to you?”

_Ah. So your relationship has become sexual in nature._

“Nope,” she squeaks and if he gives her an odd look, she ignores it. “He was just making vague comments about us sharing a house. I think he knows about you. Maybe when you were sick last time or -”

 _Do you still want to share a house?_ she thinks as she is speaking but she doesn’t ask this of course. 

“ - some other way -”

“Yes.”

Rey rears her head back in confusion. “Yes to him figuring out when you were sick or yes to -?”

“To staying here.” He must mistake her shocked expression for something else because he rolls his eyes. “It doesn’t make sense to move with those fucking things hanging around -”

“- Laughers,” she corrects but she sounds vague even to herself. 

“ - whatever you want to call them, I’m not going to leave you here alone. And before you get all uppity with me, it’s not because of my macho-bullshit as you love to call it. It just makes more sense if we’re together when they -”

“I never said that.”

“Yes you did. You just told me the other day that relegating you to couch while I cook is -”

“I never asked you if you were staying or not.”

Ben tilts his head at her like she just said something strange. “Yes. You did, _Noomaya_.”

She is absolutely not blushing at that nickname, nor at the very recent memories it summons. 

“I didn’t say it out loud.”

And Rey just leaves that statement hanging in the air between them. 

Ben grasps the arm of the couch and unconsciously squeezes it so hard, his knuckles stand out. He’s looking at her like she might be a little crazy and though she’s still gravely embarrassed over earlier, it feels important right now to maintain eye contact. 

“I’m pretty sure you said that.”

“I didn’t.”

“So what - I’ve just developed ESP in the last twenty-four hours.”

“I didn’t say it out loud.”

“But I heard you. You said, ‘Do you still want to share the house?’”

“No. I didn’t.”

“But -”

“Ben.” She leans forward so her arms are resting on her thighs and slowly shakes her head at him. “I didn’t say it out loud. I distinctly remember because I didn’t _want_ to ask you.”

“Why?”

She sputters at him. “How is that important? Shouldn’t we be more concerned how you heard something that was in my head?”

“I want to know.”

Rey cuts her gaze away from him and then it is his turn to lean forward to capture her attention.

Well, if he wants to address this, then they’re going to address it. 

“I didn’t know that you would want to stay after today.”

His jaw shifts, and she goes from thinking he's going to lose it on her, to him dropping the matter entirely in the time it takes for her to blink. 

But he does neither. 

“I already said it wouldn’t happen again.” He looks annoyed now and something else, something that she can’t quite put her finger on because she’s too busy reliving the mortification that was this day. 

He might look hurt if she didn’t know him better. 

“No - I mean, _yes,_ obviously, I know that. It’s just…”

His eyelid twitches. “Just what?”

 _Why? Why do you have to make this so difficult?_ she silently rails at him. 

“I’m not making this difficult, you are!” He suddenly explodes at her and when they’re both left to breathe in the wake of his words, she can only slump back into the couch in wide eyed disbelief. His lips part and he _flounders_ before her very eyes because… 

“You… didn’t say that out loud either.”

“No,” she whispers through paper-dry lips, “I did not.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ishkode translates to "fire" in Ojibwe.


	21. Inferno

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "What did you say, Noomaya?"
> 
> And that - that feels different than any other way he has spoken to her. There is weight behind those words. Intention. Delicate warmth and a hint of vulnerability. So she repeats herself because this is a part of it, she thinks. A part of some hitherto unknown dance in which she may have just unwittingly become a partner. 
> 
> "I want to help you." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All I have to say is this - next time, Ben won't just lie there. Take that as you will. 
> 
> Happy reading ;) <3

Rey rolls over in the morning to find Ben already awake in his respective bed. He stares at the ceiling the way one might when contemplating a long fall, like he might like to stay in his bed forever just to avoid the inevitable. 

“Did you dream last night?” 

Rey doesn’t know why she is whispering. Maybe because it’s barely dawn, or maybe because of the way he looks right now. They were up late last night, trying to figure out what this latest mystery might mean for them. She feels like she didn’t sleep at all.

_Do you think Chewbacca knew the water does this? Do you think it did it to the Ayashe too, or just us?_

_I don’t know, Rey. I’m in the dark as much as you are._

_...can you hear my thoughts right now?_

_No. You?_

_No. I’m going to make a new log in the scanner._

_Of course you are._

_Notes are helpful Ben. This is unchartered territory. At least for - well, would you happen to know if -_

_Abhorrents have mind reading abilities?_

_Well, I wasn’t going to put it that way._

_Uh huh._

_So, do they?_

_It’s - no._

_Ben…_

_No, they don’t. Not like this anyways… it could have been a fluke, you know._

_Do you really believe that?_

_I don't know what to believe._

_What are we going to do?_

As it turned out, Ben didn’t have an answer for that either. 

Across the living room, he takes a moment to reply and by the harsh rasp of his voice, she knows he is still sick. 

“Yes.”

*

She isn’t avoiding Ben. Not really. 

It’s just that he’s ill and they’re both still reeling from yesterday. The fact they can kind of, sort of, hear each other’s thoughts is impossible. Or it should be. 

But she knows that’s not the only reason she left him sleeping in his bed when they really ought to be enacting her plan from last night. Her “fucked up, insane and _lunatic_ experiment” as Ben had put it. 

The memories of yesterday are raw. Heart-attack inducing. Mortifying. 

Ben reacted the way he did because he’s sick. He pinned her to the bathroom door and sniffed her neck and - and - nope. She’s not going to dwell on the specifics when she’s trying to pretend the whole thing never happened. Even though she wasn’t dry humping his leg or anything - a thought, that however ridiculous, makes her blush like she _did_ \- she still responded to it. To him. She _whimpered_ for Christ’s sake, though if he ever tries to use that against her, she will just say she was scared. 

Even though she wasn’t. Even though every time she thinks about what happened, she gets hot and flushed and a suspicious ache tightens her core and she just - 

Can’t go there. Not now. Not ever. 

If they are able to read each other’s minds then she has to lock this shit down. He can’t know. They might be adults and she could rationalize it away as the fact that they are only people on this planet, but she can’t bear the thought of the look he would give her if knew - whether it be scorn or pity. 

She _can’t_. 

So she’s outside, simmering in denial and watching the tops of the fence to make sure there’s no black smoke lurking around. BB started working on the greenhouses far earlier than normal and there is that whole debacle to deal with now too. 

It just never seems to end. 

“How are you today?”

BB shovels out the divots needed for the struts that will support the greenhouse walls when completed. He does not pause in this task as he normally would, his movements stilted. Almost sullen in their precision. 

She notes the behaviour the same way she has been observing the droid ever since he began to behave oddly - with apprehensive uncertainty. 

Φ _I am functional today, Madam Rey. I feel that I will complete the blueprints for the greenhouses in six standards days._ Φ 

That seems ambitious to her and she tells him as much. “The fence took a lot longer than that and that was with us helping you.”

Φ _That is correct, Madam Rey. If I do half a power cycle each night instead of a full one, and focus all my efforts, I should have this completed in time._ Φ 

“In time for what?”

BB stops then and all his joints seem to wilt at once. 

Φ _For when you have to deactivate me._ Φ 

“BB…” Rey trails off sadly because if things keep up the way they have been, then he is right. She doesn’t want to do it - not only because how useful the droid is but because he’s…

A part of the pride. 

That might be a strange thing to say about a machine but he’s become so much more than just a tool to her. He stayed by her side while she was healing and he’s a welcome distraction whenever Ben becomes too much of a pain in the ass to deal with. Even Ben seems reluctant to deactivate him, but if the droid keeps malfunctioning, she doesn’t want to end up destroying him either. 

She might be able to reprogram him. Maybe, if she get a look at his components. 

Φ _It’s alright, Madam Rey. Do not fret. Best to do it sooner than later, I think. Many of my old subroutines have been conflicting with my current programming. Soon, the BB8 you know will cease to exist. It’s better this way._ Φ 

“I might be able to fix you. If you can show me where your mainframe is stored, I can try to work around the old hardwiring.”

BB clicks in consideration and then nods its dome head. Φ _When would you like to look?_ Φ 

“How about right now?” She secretly wants to do this when BB is acting most like himself. If his other programming kicks on in the middle of her tinkering with him, she doesn’t know how he will react. 

With farcical eagerness, BB drops the shovel and whirls next to her on his wheels, beeping animatedly about the tools she will need to pop open its computer. As they make their way to the house together, she muses that BB isn't all that different from humans. 

Hope comes in strange places, often in the ones you would least expect.

*

“Is he off?”

Rey is sitting on a stool on the porch with BB on power cycle mode. She has a hypospanner in one hand and a pair of tweezers in the other, his wires sticking out the back of his head in a tangled mess that strongly resembles spaghetti noodles. She’s tied her hair back in a loose braid so she can see what the hell she is doing; long hair is not conducive to droid surgery. 

“Power cycling,” she mutters, concentrating on the little blue nodes BB told her about. She won’t be able to remove them right now - the droid has to be deactivated for that - but she at least knows where they are. 

The nodes look faded compared to most of BB’s innards. She eyes them diffidently, like they’re tiny cancerous tumours. 

“Will you be able to save him?”

It’s a strange word choice for someone who professes to hate droids so much but she doesn’t comment on it. 

“Hopefully.”

She sits back to take a break, stretching at the kink in her back, and looks up to find Ben staring at her legs. She gazes down at herself in alarm, but when she sees nothing but the long purple skirt she put on this morning, she frowns at him. 

“What?”

Ben meets her gaze without a trace of sheepishness and shrugs his broad shoulders. “I’ve never seen you wear that before.”

She looks down at herself again, suddenly insecure. 

“It’s easier than putting on pants.” She shifts the material over the deep, ugly scarring in her legs when she realizes it rode up a little. She doesn’t like looking at those scars, at those gory reminders of how close she came to death. “I don’t think the swelling will ever fully go away.”

He says nothing to this and looks out to where BB has already started erecting the poles needed for the greenhouse foundations. He's pale and drawn, his shirt already ringed with sweat around his neck

She tugs on her skirt, wondering if he said something because he can see the scars running up the side of her leg, or for some other reason. Then she wonders why that’s important at all. 

“Tonight, then.”

She watches him watch the sky, but for what she does not know. 

“Tonight…?”

“We’ll do your wacky science experiment.”

Rey almost chokes on her spit. 

She thought he would give her a few more days to prepare for this. Not that they really _need_ to prepare much for it - they’re just going to drink the river water after all - but mentally and emotionally, she doesn’t know if she is ready. 

Ben is peering at her again, his head tilted slightly to the side. 

“Alright.” She straightens and returns to BB, whose brains need to be put back in his little dome head before they do anything else. 

“This was your idea -”

“I said alright, didn’t I?” It comes out nastier than she means it to but she’s too unnerved to take it back. 

She expects a nasty retort, a sarcastic comment - anything, but when the door gently closes with a click instead of a bang she releases a breath she didn’t realize she was holding. 

*

“What do you think these are, BB?”

The droid wheels over to her, markedly more chipper now that there is a chance she might be able to save him. She tries not to get her hopes up, but if they can bring BB back after deactivation, then maybe not all will be lost. 

She’s holding a handful of green sprigs she discovered growing by the perimeter on the north side. BB takes them from her and runs a scan on them. He utters a few clicks, his gigantic computer brain running thousands of diagnostics a second, before handing them back to her. 

Φ _These are similar to the Lamiaceae plant family that once grew on Earth._ Φ

“Mint?” She eyes the sprigs dubiously, running her fingers over their soft leafing. Sure enough, when she smells it she detects it; spearmint but lighter. “Huh. I wonder if they would be good in tea.”

Φ _That is likely, Madam Rey. Though they may also have medicinal purposes._ Φ

“Really? What kind of medicinal purposes?” 

The droid clicks in a way that seems furtive. His lights dim and then he leans towards her the way children in a schoolyard do when sharing a secret. 

Φ _I do believe, Madam Rey, that abhorrents use mint to soothe achy glands._ Φ

 _Careful,_ she tries to tell herself, even though her eyes have widened. _Don’t give too much away here._

“...oh, that’s… neat.” Wow, she could not sound squeakier if she tried. 

Φ _Yes Madam Rey - but -_ Φ

The droid stops speaking and twitches his head. Rey stomach clenches like a fist but BB seems to come back to himself this time, seems to fight against whatever programming is battling him for control. 

“BB?”

Φ _It’s alright, Madam Rey. I only meant to say that government studies have shown Alpha males and females picking mint leaves for their Omega mates. They give the leaf to them to calm stubborn heat cycles._ Φ

“Heat cycles?” She is not even trying to hide her surprise anymore. _Heat cycles?_

Φ _Yes. Both female and male Omegas experience heat after puberty, though their behaviour differs vastly. Omega females are smaller in build and tend to hide and forage for food in the weeks leading up to their heat, while males, who are typically quite larger in build and similar in body type to their Alpha male counterparts, become aggressive and territorial. There are some bloodlines of Omegas that have been found to be even larger than Alphas, particularly in Indigenous populations. Both genders nest and experience sudden surges in body temperature. From the case studies conducted on imprisoned Omegas, they have been observed referring to their heats as “Ishkode”. Mint leaves, when wrapped in a cold towel, often provide…_ Φ

But Rey isn’t listening to this impromptu lesson anymore. 

Ben is… not an Alpha. But he _is._ Has to be. He is the quintessential Alpha male by sheer body mass alone. 

But, if Omegas really are similar in size and…

She gasps. 

Ben is Indigenous. Ojibwe if she remembers correctly. 

And then it all clicks into place. Him hoarding all the blankets, the strange nests on his bed, his aggressive behaviour towards the Ayashe. Ishkode, heat cycles - that was why Ben reacted so violently when she asked him about that word. 

When she thinks about it - about every single time she has called Ben an Alpha, every single instance that she has told him not to inflict his designation on her, not once has he ever called _himself_ an Alpha. 

This whole time, she thought him something he's not because he looks like an Alpha and just really has that whole stereotypical Alpha vibe everyone always talks about. It’s the whole “looks like a duck, quacks like a duck” adage, only once again, she has been proven wrong. 

Rey has many impulses at that moment. The first and foremost is to storm into the house and demand the truth from him. To ask why he led her to believe, or at least never corrected her, that he is _not_ an Alpha. She’s astounded, dumbfounded and a little angry with him because this entire time he wasn’t an Alpha at all. 

Ben is an Omega. 

BB notices that she’s kind of drifted off and repeats her name a few times in concern. 

“Oh - um, sorry. I just… I didn’t know all that. It’s interesting. Very interesting” 

Maybe it’s pointless to pretend she doesn’t know about Ben, but the droid keeps up pretenses anyway, in a way that is alarmingly clever. 

Φ _Well, Madam Rey. I thought you should know. You can put that plant to good use._ Φ

“For the tea,” she murmurs, like they both don't know who it's really for. 

Φ _Yes, exactly._ Φ

"But… why are you telling me this? I thought your programming prevented you from sharing information about Omegas and Alphas." 

The droid nods its head sadly. 

Φ _My programming does, Madam Rey. But my sole mission is to ensure your survival. Even though Master Ben is uncouth, he has demonstrated his commitment to your protection. So I must protect you both - even if it is from myself. My old programming is conflicting with this new objective and… it might be safest to deactivate me._ Φ

"Until I fix it. Right BB?" She smiles hopefully and he gives a couple tentative beeps.

Φ _Right, Madam Rey._ Φ

BB twitches a few more times and then goes back to work, leaving Rey to stare blankly at the ground. 

An Omega. _An Omega_. 

She turns back to the house with every intention of tearing a new strip off her _Omega_ roommate. 

But something stops her. 

She can’t just go barging in there, guns blazing. If Ben didn’t tell her, he has his reasons. Even if they’re stupid and silly. She just has no idea how this all works. Of all the designations, she knows the least about Omegas. They are purported to be rare and they apparently have a stronger scent than Alphas, but even those facts are not exactly backed up by academic journal articles. It was all conjecture, only what she heard in the barracks. All rumours and made-up horror stories. 

Ben seems like the pinnacle Alpha that she assumed him to be. But she doesn’t even really know anything about Alphas either. 

She had it all wrong and maybe that is what upsets her most. The affront to her own intelligence. Her pride. 

Rey peers down at the mint plant in her hand and pulls in a deep breath. He’s going to know if she just gives this to him. She doesn’t want him thinking she’s been poking around, even though that’s exactly what she just did. 

Darkness is starting to fall, earlier and earlier each day. Perhaps this planet has some sort of winter after all. 

Before Rey heads inside, she decides to pick as many of the mint plants as possible. Just to be safe. She puts them in the cupboard in the kitchen when she comes in to find Ben asleep. 

She'll tell him about them later. 

*

Six mugs are lined along the counter like shot glasses. 

Rey eyes the clear liquid with about as much trepidation as she did when Poe made all the Officers drink an ancient bottle of tequila he found on one of his scout missions. 

Ben leans his hip against the counter, looking between her and the glasses like he has about a million other places to be right now. He's haggard and a little wild with his hair in a shaggy mess around his face. He keeps pushing the strands back, but a few stubborn waves hang in his eyes. 

She pretends those black curls don't make him even more dashing than he already is. 

_Omega? Really?_

Her brain can't reconcile it and this really isn't the time to dwell on his designation. Not with what they're about to do. 

“We’ll each drink one and then test if it happens again. If one of us gets loopy from the water, we stop. If both of us gets loopy -”

“- we’re fucked.”

Rey rolls her eyes at his dramatics. “It’s not like we’re drinking paint thinner.”

“Do you drink paint thinner all the time?”

“Well, no but -”

“It fucks with my head.” 

She looks at him then, remembering how he said something very similar yesterday. When she was touching his hair and…

Just yesterday. She can leave it at that. 

“I know. But if the water is affecting us -”

“Yeah, yeah. You gave me your pep talk five times already. Let’s just get this the fuck over with, shall we?”

He’s extra grumpy tonight, though it might be because he looks terrible again. This - _heat_ , she supposes she should call it - is a bad one. 

They reach for the mugs at the same time and when their fingers brush, they both glance at each other and quickly move away. She really doesn’t need to be thinking about yesterday, or how dashing he is, when they’re about to test out if they’ve suddenly developed telepathy. 

_Kittens,_ she thinks, tipping the mug back and letting the cool, sweet water wash down her gullet. _Rainbows. Lollipops. Superman. Ben’s chest - no, NO! Okay, okay, squirrels. Ants. Spiders, creepy long legs, sticky webs._

Rey shivers with revulsion as she lowers her cup. She hates spiders. They’re one of the few animals that survived the bombs on Earth. They descended underground with them in their bunkers, hanging over her bed with their creepy legs. 

Ben lowers his cup a few seconds later, his lips red and wet as he swallows. She flushes and quickly looks away. 

“So, I’ll go -”

“Pick a number between 1 and 10.”

Rey narrows her eyes at the interruption. _Rude_. 

He puts his cup on the counter and there is a challenging jut to his jaw that wasn’t there a second ago. It really doesn't matter who goes first and she knows he'll push her if she fights him on it. She chews on her cheek for a moment before squaring her shoulders and focusing on a number. 

"Fine. Get ready."

He snorts at that but she ignores him. 

_Four, four is my favourite number. Four is good, don’t think about chests or - FOUR, four, four, four,_ she chants and her chest is tight with panic because he could hear that, couldn’t he? And that, and that. 

“Hm.” 

Her eyes first widen and then narrow. “Hm? What does hm mean?”

“Only that you’re a neurotic, jumped up, nervous -”

“- I’m not _nervous_ -” 

“ - _bagnawaw_ that apparently likes the number four.”

She almost doesn’t register what he is saying because - yes - there her arms go, spindling together tightly with her irritation. 

“Well you’re a - wait, what?”

“Four,” he repeats slowly, like she’s a simpleton. “You know, the number that comes after three.”

“How clearly did you hear that thought?” She bypasses his surliness because it’s old news by now. 

“Well, with the way you were practically screaming it into my brain, I would say pretty well.”

Rey immediately takes out her scanner and makes note of this - without Ben’s embellishments of course. 

“Alright. Your turn.”

He doesn’t look like he’s going to do it. In fact, he looks dead on his feet and she almost tells him he should sit down when he tuts at her like a misbehaved school girl. 

“I’m fine standing, thanks.”

“Hey! My test is over now, so -”

“It’s not like there’s an off switch,” he drawls. “Do you think I want to listen to your thoughts any longer than necessary? It’s like there’s a hive of bees in your head, only they’re hopped up on klonopin and have no fucking idea where they’re supposed to go.”

"You really have to be a wanker about everything, don't you?" 

"Only when it pertains to you, _Noomaya_."

She really doesn’t mean to do it. 

In retrospect, she isn’t even sure what comes over her. She’s nervous - that much she knows - and angry that he’s making this into an ordeal, as per usual, and maybe a teensy bit miffed that he didn’t tell her about the Omega thing, so in one moment she’s glaring at him from across the counter and in the next -

*

_Running. She is running and she is so fast, so graceful and sleek that not even the wind can touch her. Mom is somewhere behind her, chasing her along a crystalline and running river. At her back, the mountains soar sky high. Jagged and snowy._

_This is her favourite memory._

_The air tastes like lilacs and honey - she doesn’t know how the air can taste like anything, only that it does. It’s mom, she realizes. That is mom’s scent and her mind is rent through with such powerful homesickness, she’s nearly in tears._

_But she keeps running because this is a game. A game that is not really a game. Mom wants her to be fast, to be the quickest of the pride._

_Dad calls them a pack, but mom calls them a pride because they are not like dad. He's an Alpha, but it is the Omegas who care for the pride._

_These are things mom teaches her._

_She is her only pup, but she is strong and willful and all the things mom has made her. She will make a great pride of her own one day._

_“Mishi!” Mom calls after her retreating back. Mom is laughing even though she found her crying earlier in the kitchen. Even though the sounds of mom and dad’s shouting still ring in there, amongst the pots and pans. “You’ve gotten so fast!”_

_She has, she can’t be stopped, she -_

*

Someone is screaming. Crying. Saying her name. But she can’t leave. It’s like being dropped in a vat of molasses. She can’t fight her way out, she can’t move, can’t _breathe_. 

These are not her memories. She is in free fall. 

*

_“- must do this, Mishi. Our people depend on it.”_

_Mom's fingers are soft on her face, brushing through shoulder-length black locks. Her eyes are the same shade of brown as hers and she knows that they turn green when she is angry and hazel when she smiles._

_She feels like this is the last time she will see her again._

_“I know, mom,” she tells her and she means it even though she’s terrified, even though she is afraid there will be nothing left to save if the droids ever find this underground network of caves. She has a flight suit on that doesn’t belong to her. It’s small and she feels ridiculous in it, but she can do this._

_She must._

_“You’re so brave. I don’t know where you get that from, certainly not your father.”_

_“From you, mom. I get it from you.”_

_“Oh, you’re always so serious. Now hug me and make sure you send me a transmission before you board that ship.”_

_She swallows back tears as she hugs her mom, crushing her in her grasp._

_“We’ll see each other again, Mishi. I promise that we’ll -”_

*

There is warmth around her, inside her. Crushing her to pieces. How does she leave this place? How does she escape? 

She thinks she might be calling someone’s name. Someone she knows. She thinks she might be losing her mind. Herself. Everything. 

*

_“- taken the co-pilots out of circulation. They’ll wake up in their transport, no harm, no foul. It’s more mercy than they’ve ever given us.”_

_She doesn’t like this pompous asshole speaking to her over the transmission. Dameron has always been a smarmy cunt. He smiles too much for someone who’s about to launch themselves into outer space with no guarantee of survival, like this is all some big joke._

_Fucking Alphas._

_“Fine,” she tells him, cutting him off before he can do anymore righteous grand-standing. “And what about the pilots?”_

_Dameron laughs like this all hilarious._

_Her glower deepens._

_“Your pilot is a real firecracker, Solo. Won’t give me the time of day, though. Think I make her nervous or something.”_

_She bets he does._

_“Anyways, she’s brilliant. IQ off the charts. No family to speak of, or any other attachments - it's all in the dossier. You should have an easy enough time overpowering her. I’ve seen dust motes with more social skills than her. You show her the gun and she’ll surrender right away. Guarantee it.”_

_“Do you think she’s amendable?” Because she doesn’t want to think about the part where she has to take the gun out and hi-jack this hapless pilot’s ship even if she is a Beta._

_“Maybe,” Dameron says carelessly. “Doesn’t matter though. Once we’re in the air they have no choice but to cooperate.”_

_“Right, well -”_

_“Oh - and Solo. Don’t get all soft for her. She’s still a Beta, no matter how smart and pretty she is. Don’t forget what they did to us.”_

_As if she ever could._

_She goes to tell him to fuck off, becuase she’s been telling him to fuck off since they were in diapers and he tried to pull his Alpha shit on her, but before she can get the words out, someone starts whispering in her ear, and she realizes she can’t breathe, that the mission has already failed because she isn’t here, she’s…_

*

It’s like surfacing from a depthless lake, where there is no light, no air, no sense of direction.

Until suddenly she’s _back_. 

Rey is coughing and clawing at - the carpet? Is she lying down? She manages to roll to her side and when she sees Ben lying on the floor beside her, groaning like he’s in pain, she doesn’t really understand at first. 

She was him. For a while there, she couldn’t even tell where she ended and he began. 

“Dameron,” she coughs, wincing at the strain in her throat. She didn’t imagine the screaming part and she wasn’t the only one judging from the way Ben rubs his throat from where he is lying on the floor next to her. “As in, Poe Dameron?”

Ben closes his eyes and growls, his chest rising and falling rapidly. 

“Before you go accusing me of shit,” he croaks at her, “can you at least let me catch my fucking breath?”

Pushing up on shaking limbs, Rey manages to sit up far enough so she can rest on the counter behind her. Her skirt is tangled around her legs but she’s too weak to fix it. 

“Tell me how you did it.”

He’s sweating profusely again, his fingers weakly digging into his glands as he utters another beleaguered groan. 

“What’s the point? You’ve already jumped to your misinformed conclusions.”

“How are they misinformed when I got them from _your head?”_

“Shouldn’t we be focusing on what you just did? That’s more than guessing a number.”

“Don’t _do_ that,” she grits between her teeth. Her hip hurts like hell; she must have fallen on it when they passed out. “Don’t change the subject and act like I’m the unreasonable one when you’re the one who keeps hiding things from me.”

Ben huffs and then manages to shimmy on his side, where he half-crawls, half drags himself so that he is sitting next to her against the counter. She stares at him, still angry and floored by what happened, but surprised that he would willingly put himself in such close proximity to her. 

She wants to yell at him. To vent some of this shaking, horrible feeling inside her because what the fuck just happened? From _one_ cup of river water, no less. Unless the effects are compounding on one another, or it’s just _them_ somehow making it so much stronger than before because she was in his head, living his memories. 

How does one recover from something like that?

He leans his head against the counter with a muted thump, his throat bobbing as he swallows. His glands are sticky with sweat and bright red, and she might feel a little sorry for him, but he keeps _lying_ to her. 

“I wasn’t lying,” he corrects out loud, but he sounds unsure for some reason.

“Do you even know the definition of -”

“I can’t hear you as well as before. It’s - muffled.”

Rey opens her mouth, then crosses her arms in front of her before closing it again. “I didn’t mean to go in that far.”

“Well, you did.” He isn’t as angry as she thought he would be and she briefly entertains the notion that he doesn’t know how far she got. How much she saw. “You found bits and pieces of the truth. Not the full picture.”

“So I am just supposed to accept that Poe Dameron was apparently working for your side the entire time.”

“Oh it’s my side now, is it?”

She shakes her head, her hair clinging to the cupboard in static shock. He always does this to her, always turns things around to make her feel guilty. She’s sick of it. 

“You know what I mean.”

“I don’t think I do.”

She turns to him, her heart rate finally stabilizing as she glares at his profile. “So did you get a dossier on me? On what happened to me? On my _family?_ Did you know this entire time?”

“Rey -”

But she’s already struggling to get to her feet. 

Ben gets this look on his face, like people get when they've had a horrible day at work, then they miss the train home and it's pouring rain when they leave the station. Like he's one straw away from just laying on the street and letting the rain wash him away to the gutters and sea beyond. 

She doesn't care. Not now. Not after what she just saw and heard and felt. It's too much. 

"Rey," he grunts when he uses the counter to pull himself to his feet. "Wait, alright?" 

She doesn’t know where she is going to go now that it is dark. Maybe she’ll lock herself in the bathroom and curl up in the bathtub. She just knows she can’t stand to look at him for another second. 

“ _Would you stop_?”

It’s still hard to move, like her limbs don’t quite remember how to function when she isn’t occupying his body and mind. She hobbles ungainly across the living room, hissing at the pain in her leg. 

“I know that you have the IQ of a genius.” 

Ben sounds out of breath, like he’s in pain from the mere act of speaking. 

And even though she doesn’t want to listen to him, she must be a masochist because she stops beside the bookshelf and turns back to him. Like she’s still in there, with him, like a little piece is magnetized to him now and no matter what she does, he will be around every corner. 

The feeling makes her panicky. 

“What does that matter?”

He stands by the coffee table, panting like he’s run up a flight of steps and his eyes shining, glassy. But he’s still talking, still making an effort and she hesitates where she is, unmoored by the possibilities of why he would care enough to explain himself now when he never cared to before. 

“I know that your family died the day the bombs fell and that you grew up in an orphanage underground. You survived the Lorvian Flu in the London bunker and you out performed every cadet in basic training. Probably out of sheer stubbornness.”

She sniffs at that last part. 

“I also know that you're the most infuriating, confounding and pain-in-the-ass woman I’ve ever had the misfortune of meeting.”

Rey stiffens, on the verge of exploding again when she notices his weak grin. 

She scoffs. “You’re no bag of laughs either.”

“No. I guess not.” He purses his lips, his grin fading away. “I was given a mission to save my people, the same as you were. Dameron - the pompous little dickhead that he is - was a part of that mission. We breached the Revival program because otherwise my kind would be completely exterminated just like Palpatine always wanted. This was our only shot.”

“For you mom,” Rey says, more quietly than she has spoken yet. Maybe she can accept that; that Poe was helping them, that they were only trying to survive. That Ben knew bits and pieces about her before even meeting her. Because he saw his hesitance in his memories; he never intended on hurting her. If anything, it sounded like he wanted to sway her to his side. Even though she was justified at the time, she kind of ruined that by electrocuting him with a hypospanner and restraining him to a chair. 

Ben tenses up before he breathes a short sigh and nods. “For her and the others as well.”

“Your… pride.”

The look he gives her is inscrutable, like he didn’t expect her to remember a silly metaphor he made ages ago. 

“They were.” 

Rey raises her eyebrows. “Were?”

His jaw shifts and though he’s still pouring sweat and looks like he could really, _really_ lie down, he keeps standing there like he has nowhere better to be. 

“Look, we’re not going to make friendship bracelets or anything.” She knows the tone he’s striving for, even if he's at the edge of exhaustion. That gruff, Alpha-y - well, she supposes she shouldn’t call it that anymore. Maybe just the Ben Tone, the one that might be a lie, but only in the way that they both know it is. “But we’ve been here for months now and you’re… not terrible.”

“I’m not?”

“Anything I haven’t told you wasn’t to lie to you but because that’s finished business now.”

“Finished -”

“For us. It’s finished for us. Or it could be.”

She edges back into the room warily. “Because we’re friends now?”

“Call it whatever you want. I don’t look at you as an enemy, not after all the bullshit we’ve been through. We have enough real enemies to contend with right now, so…” Her brows wrinkle at his expectant look, before he rolls his eyes at her. “Are we good or do you want to keep yelling at me?”

This is her chance. Her chance to ask him about how he is really an Omega and not an Alpha. But she can’t help but note how tired he is, how he’s swaying a little on his feet and that he really needs to go lie down. 

She sighs and looks away from him. “We’re good.” 

As soon as she says this, he turns for his bed. 

“Great. Now, the next time we do one of these fun little experiments of yours, maybe half a dose, hm?”

“How was I supposed to know that would happen - _Solo_?”

“Oh like Kenobi is a better last name.”

“It’s a little less derivative.”

“What does that even mean? You’re like people who sling fancy words around just to demonstrate you’ve managed to memorize a thesaurus.”

“Don’t change the subject.” She might have read all the thesauruses in the bunkers back home, but that’s only because there wasn’t a lot to do around there. And also because… she likes big words. “There is no way I could have predicted _that_ happening.”

He faceplants on his bed with the grace of a hippopotamus. His response is muffled into his blankets but no less audible. 

“You’re the genius, remember?”

“Ass.”

“Twit.”

*

Rey awakes in the night to what very much sounds like a stampede of elephants crashing through the floor. She sits bolt upright in bed, the covers half over her face and her hair in wild disarray. 

“What the -?”

She shoves the blankets away, heart racing as she tries to see what the hell is happening. It’s dark in the living room, with only moonlight shining through the windows. At first, she thinks it’s the Laughers, that they are back to kill them after all, only for her to happen upon a massive man-shaped shadow on the floor. 

“ _Ben_?”

He’s lying facedown between their beds, his arm outstretched towards her mattress and utterly limp. She repeats his name a little louder and when she gets no response, she scrambles out of bed. She lands badly on her knees next to him, her hands on his shoulders as she tries to roll him onto his back. 

He’s on _fire_ and suddenly she knows why they call it Ishkode - or _heat_ as BB told her. 

“Shit, you’re heavy,” she groans, heaving him until he flops over in her lap. His eyes are closed, his breath coming in quick, distressing gasps. She touches his chest, trying not to linger on those sweaty planes. He went to sleep with a shirt on but he must have torn it off in the night. 

His heart works in a pattering, irregular rhythm. It’s going so fast, it’s no wonder he fainted. Because that’s what happened right? He must have been trying to get to the bathroom and got disoriented; her mattress is the opposite direction but that's the only thing that makes sense to her sleep-addled brain.

“Ben. Hey - wake up. You need to slow your breathing.”

She shouldn’t panic. She shouldn’t but people’s hearts should never beat that fast. Something is really wrong with him and she wants to call for BB, but she can’t because she doesn’t know what the droid will do. 

“Shit, shit, shit.” 

Her bed is closer. She’ll just get him on the mattress and then find the AED. He might need his heart restarted to trick it out of its irregular rhythm. 

She can do this. 

There is a lot of cursing, awkward bending and fingers slipping against slack muscles, but eventually, she heaves him onto her mattress. She’s on her knees beside him, pushing his hair out of his face and turning her head to press her ear near his mouth so she can count his breaths. 

What if he goes into tachycardia? What is she supposed to do? She might have to call BB anyway, consequences be damned -

Ben _moans_. 

The way it punches out of his lungs, the way his breath stutters and then draws in one deep inhale has Rey flying up away from him with her eyes wide and her hand flying to her chest. 

Fingers close over her wrist, their grip slipping before clasping her hand tightly. 

“Don’t go, _Noomaya_ ,” he rasps and he sounds tortured. Like someone is raking him over the coals or ripping out his fingernails. “ _Help me_.”

“Okay. Okay I will. I - I have mint!” she might be saying this a little too spastically but she doesn’t know how else to help him. “And Ibuprofen. I’ll go get some.”

“... ‘oo late,” he groans. “Just… don’t leave me. _Please._ ”

She doesn’t think she’s ever heard him say “please” before. He catches her before she can take off, his eyes opening just enough that she can see them glittering green in the darkness. She’s only seen them go green for one reason, yet based on his scent, she doesn’t think it’s due to anger this time. 

“Okay." She nods at him, transfixed by that alluring green gaze. "Okay. I won’t.” 

He only lays back down when she shuffles beside him, sitting awkwardly at his side. She doesn’t know what to do, has no idea what he needs from her right now, so after a shaky breath she starts stroking his hair. 

He pulls in a breath, holds it, and then releases another moan, softer this time. 

She is just going to ignore the answering heat in her core. They’re _friends_. He said as much himself. So she’s going to be his friend right now and look after him. 

“It’s okay,” Rey whispers, all tense and awkward. She’s never been very good at comforting other people, yet there is something about him that makes her want to try a little harder. To gentle the insecure quiver if her fingers. “You’re not alone. It’s okay.”

She repeats this to him softly whenever he stirs and after a while, his breathing evens out. She checks his pulse, relieved that it is back within a normal range. As the night drifts on and his soft snores fill the empty spaces, she falls asleep right beside him. 

*

It’s warm when she wakes up, but not the kind of warm she is used to. This is like toasty winter mornings, when skin is flushed pink and glowing from sleep. 

She opens her eyes to darkness and knows not much time has passed. Her face is pressed into her pillow and she blinks blearily, snuggling even closer because her pillow is _warm._

What Rey fails to realize, until the instant her comfy pillow _breathes,_ is that she isn’t lying in the same place she fell asleep. She had tried to keep a respectful distance between them, to give Ben his space _(and_ her blanket because that was how pitiful she found him). 

He apparently had other ideas. 

His arm is wrapped around her back, his fingers tangled in her hair and pressed into her spine. She can’t see from this angle, since he must have dragged her over to his side of the bed at some point, but she can feel his nose in her hair, pressed firmly into her scalp. He has the top half of her body clutched to his chest like a child holding a teddy bear. Her hand is resting over his heart, where a healthy and strong rhythm pounds beneath her palm. 

_Oh. My god. Oh my god. Ohmygodohmygodohmygod._

They're cuddling. _Cuddling._

She’s making this into a bigger deal than it needs to be. So what if he’s cuddling her. Right? Maybe Omegas need to do that when they’re in heat. There’s nothing wrong with cuddling. Friends cuddle all the time. Well, not any friends she knows of, but it must happen. Somewhere. 

This isn't inappropriate at all. 

She tries to shift, but his hand tightens around her like iron and she knows then that he is awake. Or as awake as he can be in his current condition. 

“...Ben?” she ventures as quietly as possible. 

His heart jumps beneath her fingers and for some reason, she hugs him back like she can control his heartbeat through touch alone. She doesn’t want it to go back to that furious rhythm it was at before. 

There's a pause of breath, then:

“...don’t go.”

“I’m not,” she whispers back right away. “Is there anything I can -” she catches herself in time, remembering the last time she said something so triggering to him. She swallows thickly and whispers, “Can I get you anything? Water? Or some mint?”

“...won’t help. Now.” His fingers fist her hair to the point of pain and though it hurts, she doesn’t complain. “I don’t know what to do... just want it to stop.”

She looks around the room like something might magically appear to help him with, when her gaze flits across the lower half of his body. Her heart skitters in her chest and she reddens when she sees the distinct outline of _him_ under her thin blanket. His hands are nowhere near _there_ and she highly doubts he was touching himself while she slept. He’s just _hard_. Painfully, at that, even though the blanket conceals him. 

And he looks even larger from this angle. 

Should she just pretend she doesn’t see it? Yes, she can do that. She’ll just look at the wall and ignore the massive erection that’s only a short distance from where she is laying. Or the window, she can certainly look at that too. Or at her arm…

Rey looks back at his dick almost immediately, blinking rapidly like a bashful virgin. 

She’s not inexperienced. She’s had sex before. Not that those few experiences were much to write home about or anything and - _why is she thinking about that right now?_

Ben’s stomach drops with his breathing and he goes back to pressing his nose in her hair, breathing her in as his chest hitches with it. He’s shaking badly, the way she’s seen veterans of the war shake, and she can’t just leave him like this. 

“Ben.”

She can do this. They are friends, right? They help each other. Maybe not in this sort of way but if he stays like this, he might actually go into cardiac arrest. He might _die_ and just the thought of that makes her want to fly into a panic again. 

His arms curl around her tighter, like he’s afraid she’ll vanish into thin air. She gently pets his chest in the most reassuring way she can. 

“Ben, listen to me.”

“... _wh-at_ …” He groans the word out, teeth chattering in a way that makes her utter a soft, empathetic sound in response. 

“I think… I think I should help you.” She winces when she says the word, more for him than for herself. 

Predictably, he tenses up all around her, his breath catching on a pained gasp. 

“...we can just lay here,” he tries weakly, but she hears the fight going out of his voice. Hears the deep and roughened desperation of his need. He is a victim to his designation right now and afterwards, she is going to find a way to stave off these heats because he can’t keep going through this. 

It will kill him. 

“No. You’re too sick now. It’s… it’s fine. We’re - friends.” She pauses at his bitter, choked up laugh and barely refrains from pinching him, heat or no heat. “We _are_ though. So… let me help you. We - we’ll never talk about it after this, okay? I promise.”

“Right,” he says tightly and is it her imagination or does he sound resigned about that fact? 

Rey eyes his erection, at the way it thrusts through the blankets like an angry exclamation point. It must be awfully uncomfortable. That’s the part she is going to focus on. Not how nervous and hot she’s suddenly gotten, or how shaky her hand is when she lifts it from his chest. 

He snatches it before she gets very far, enveloping her in searing heat. 

“You don’t have to. Really.” He sounds slightly more with it now. Not panicked or anything, more like he’s trying to give her an out. 

“I know I don’t,” she whispers. “I… I want to help you.”

He hisses, his fingers squeezing her before relaxing, just a little. 

“What… what did you say?”

"What? I -"

He gulps and then his fingers run through her hair more softly. Almost coaxingly. 

"What did you say, _Noomaya_?"

And that - _that_ feels different than any other way he has spoken to her. There is weight behind those words. Intention. Delicate warmth and a hint of vulnerability. So she repeats herself because this is a part of it, she thinks. A part of some hitherto unknown dance in which she may have just unwittingly become a partner. 

"I want to help you." 

He moans, dark and desperate and right into her hair. The nape of her neck breaks out into delicious tingles and he seems to sense this because his hand slides up her back to gather at the fragile arch of bone, right at her hairline. 

_This isn't for me,_ she tells herself. _This is for Ben. Just a friend helping another friend._

“May I - help you?” She needs his permission, she needs to know this is _okay._ Well, none of it is okay, per se, but this is - like first aid. It’s first aid only sexual. For him. Not for her. She can be clinical about this. 

Detached. 

Ben nods, jerkingly, and whispers in her hair so quietly she almost doesn’t hear him. “... _please_.”

Alright. She’s done this before, given handjobs in darkened bunks, where passions were whispered and stifled. This can be like that, lending relief against the dark of night. 

Ben lets go of her hand and she doesn’t slide it down his body with any finesse because that would make this something it isn’t. She’s never been the seductress type anyway. She reaches for that bulge under the blankets and slides the comforter away. He’s pushing through his sweatpants, twitching under her gaze with his frantic heartbeat. 

She hopes this works.

Rey shakes her hand a little because it doesn’t seem to want to stop quivering. The quicker she can get this over with, the quicker Ben will feel better. 

Her fingers touch down just above the hem of his pants. 

His stomach collapses at her touch and then _spasms_ , muscles bunching in a way that gives her an excited flutter. She hopes he can’t smell her right now. She is starting to _react_ and logically, she knows she can’t help it, that this is a normal bodily response to a charged situation. Even if this doesn’t really feel like any other time she’s been with other people. 

Her nerves are on fire at every point of contact between them and when his fingers rub on the back of her neck, perhaps seeking a gland that does not exist, she has to fight not to close her eyes. 

_Focus Kenobi. This is your mission. Focus._

She considers taking his pants off completely and then decides against it. Gripping the waistband, she pushes it down his hips and then he… _pops_ free.

And she just stares.

It almost looks like a normal penis. Almost but not quite. 

He’s long and thick, pulsing and so hard that his cock is curved up towards his stomach. It’s a brief consideration, a brief and deliciously wicked thought of if he would even _fit_ inside her. And how that might feel if he did. But she’s pushed that thought away as far as it will go (which, really, isn’t that far at all) and eyes his cock critically, like an explorer mapping out which route to take through uncertain territory. The head is proportionate to the length, thick and dripping with precum. Red and shiny. 

Yes, it looks like a normal, albeit large penis - save for the protrusion along the base, of course. She’s heard of knots before, but only ever in Alphas. This must be another thing male abhorrents have in common. Gigantic cocks and large, puffy knots. 

_And what would that feel like? Would it hurt, or stretch me out, or…?_

She chokes on a breath and has to blink several times to dispel that heady contemplation. 

“...everything okay?” He sounds vulnerable. Of course he does. Here he is, out on display, and she still hasn’t touched him or said a word. 

_Get a fucking grip._

Rey drags in a shaky breath and nods against him. She shouldn’t be ogling him right now. That’s creepy. Right? Or maybe she’s just drawing an analysis of him, like she’s done with every other aspect of his personality. Painting a picture of the full man. 

And he is _full_. 

“Ready?” Rey whispers and while Ben doesn’t answer by way of words, he noses into her roughly, his fingers tightening along her scalp in a way that makes her stomach jump and then tighten pleasantly. 

That’s a good enough answer for her. 

She starts with a gentle approach, her fingers brushing his length before wrapping around it. His cock is even hotter than the rest of him and she gasps a little at the heated temperature, but that is _nothing_ compared to Ben’s reaction. 

He _growls,_ the sound lodged deep in his chest and vibrating into a darkened rumble that transforms into a dragging moan. His hips thrust up, like he might be imagining that it isn’t a hand wrapped around his member, but something else entirely. 

“ _Fuck,_ ” he snaps, then he starts panting again, his heart fluttering in staccato. 

This is a good reminder for Rey to _get the fuck on with it_ and stop staring at him like she’s never touched a penis before. 

With a little more confidence, she tightens her grip, testing to see if it’s too much stimulation for him. His teeth click above her and when he doesn’t say anything to stop her, she takes this as a good sign. Gathering the slippery moisture at the head, which she notices is slightly different in texture to normal precum, she tenderly squeezes her hand in a downward stroke, her grip firm as she stops just above the protrusion. 

His knot. 

She doesn’t know if she should touch that so she doesn’t. The last thing she wants is to hurt him, so instead, she slides up in a smooth glide, feeling the veins and ruddy skin of his cock shift and tug, rippling with her movement until she reaches the head. 

There is something she always used to do with her bunkmate back home, many years ago. A small improvisation to an otherwise vanilla act. So, she tries it now, not knowing if he will enjoy it or not but -

Ben’s hips arch off the bed. 

He cries out hoarsely, darkly, when she twists her hand in a gentle milking motion, right around the purple and throbbing head of his cock. He _fists_ her hair and though it hurt before, she doesn’t mind it all the much now. His entire body is tense beneath her, trembling as he lowers back to the bed. 

Then, gentle fingertips settle over the slender curve of her bicep as he brings his other hand up. Like he might want to _feel_ what she is doing to him and how her muscles shift beneath her skin. 

She has to bite her lip to stifle the small sound that wants to come out. _This is not for me, not for me, not for me._

Maybe if she keeps telling herself that, she’ll believe it eventually. 

Rey runs her finger along the gland at the tapered edge of his cock; this spot never fails to produce a reaction and it doesn’t fail this time either, because he growls again, short and rough. So she repeats the motion until he’s rhythmically tugging on her hair, his hips stuttering and then thrusting into her hand like he can’t help himself. 

Like he needs to _move._

She keeps going, stroking up and down his cock in an increasing fast pace, her hand tightening around him when he seems to prefer that. She lingers at the head, twisting and milking him at irregular intervals and _maybe_ enjoying his surprised groans of pleasure every time she does this. 

“... _I’m - close_ ,” he grits out and his voice is that intense, low-pitched bass that really does strange things to her. 

Her core tightens in response and she’s wet. Really wet. More so than what is normal for her, but she ignores that, absolutely ignores that, and yet, as she strokes him even harder, his length swelling up in her grasp, a curious sensation unfurls at the base of her spine and in the pit of her stomach. 

Heat. Tingles. Clenching pressure. 

She’s never felt anything like it. Not when she touches herself, not even with other partners. But she _isn’t_ touching herself right now. No one is, so how is she…

Ben groans his warning again and his cock twitches under her gaze. But that’s not all. 

His knot has grown steadily fatter, expanding and throbbing in time with his cock. That pressure is winding with her core and she doesn’t know what it is, only that she can’t stop now. His pleasure is her own, an uncut drug that she can’t stop chasing. She has to keep going because somehow his rapture, his _need_ is hers and she _hastokeepgoingsoclosesoclose._

Her other arm is folded underneath her and she shifts just enough to free it because instinct is taking over. As Ben rocks into her rough stroking, thrusting like he’s thinking about being inside her instead, he strokes her hair roughly and then grabs it again, like he can’t help himself. 

And neither can she. 

She brings her hand up, using the moisture steadily pouring out of his cock to lube herself up and he must sense what she is doing, must feel where she means to put her other hand, because he valiantly tries to stop her. 

“You - _fuck_ \- don’t have to -”

“Hush,” she tells him in a voice that has darkened with a hint of command. 

And, for a wonder, he _does._

As soon as Rey wraps her hand around his knot, somehow knowing that he needs her to _squeeze,_ to press down as hard as she can, he comes. 

And comes and comes. 

Beneath her, Ben _roars_ his orgasm, trying to muffle the sound into her scalp as his hips arch up and off the bed, thrusting erratically. His cum splashes onto her hands and his twitching stomach, muscles roiling with his heady pumping as she squeezes his knot. It locks there, within her fingers, throbbing with blood and cum as he groans and nuzzles into her hair. 

In the same instant, the pressure inside her snaps and it’s like she has left her body for a moment, like she can see herself from the outside because she’s coming with him. It’s secondhand, fleeting and not as intense, but her cunt contracts and she _knows_ that feeling even if it’s changed somehow. Like it’s borrowed. 

She bites her tongue to staunch the sound, tasting copper in her mouth. 

Then, everything begins to recede. The colours and sounds of the world return, bleeding into rationality, like waking from a dream. Ben's thrusts first slow and then stop altogether. His body is pulled as tight as a bowstring, locked together as he moans with relief. When she goes to release his knot, his hand shoots out, closing over her cum-sticky skin to keep her there. 

The strength and ferocity with which he does this makes her whimper. 

His hand is so much larger than hers, gripping her to him tightly before he releases a long, shuddery gasp and collapses back on the bed again. He doesn’t relinquish his grip so much as his hand flops to his side and then he’s just breathing heavily, his body twitching with his release. 

Her core is doing the same, like echoes of his own body. She’s incredibly wet, her panties and pants sticking to her. This has… never, _ever_ happened to her before. 

They lay there like there for several minutes as she listens to his breathing even out. He smells different now. Not as intense and needy as before. Softer, more relaxed and she thinks maybe this worked. 

Now, if she could get her own pulse under control, that would be great. 

“I’m…” She swallows and tries again. “I’m just going to wash up. Need anything?”

He shifts a little and she thinks he might be falling asleep. “...no…”

“Okay. That’s good.” Rey winces at herself and when she goes to rise, his arm does that thing again, tightening to hold her there. “Uh… Ben?”

He grunts and then finally releases her, his finger disentangling from her hair. She feels cold the moment she pulls away, like she is somehow heading in the wrong direction. But she fights against that strange, unbidden urge and rises from the bed in stiff limbs. Her hands are covered in his spend, which should be gross she thinks, but somehow isn’t. 

Rey makes it to the bathroom and closes the door before turning the light on. She reaches for the tap and happens upon herself in the mirror. 

And stops. 

She stares at her reflection, at the pretty pink flush of her cheeks and the gleaming glitter of her eyes. What is it? What’s changed? She tilts her head this way and that, forgetting that she has bodily fluids all over her hands and that her hair looks like she just stepped inside from being in a hurricane. 

Rey stays like that for a moment, breathing in the relatively Omega-free air of the bathroom. That soon changes, of course. She has his cum all over her, after all. She looks away from her reflection to her hands. It smells… _good_. Not quite the same as his scent; there is a hint of sex and him, too of course, all creamy vanilla. But there is something else there, something almost spicy, like cinnamon. 

_It shouldn’t go to waste. I should taste it._

Startled, Rey scrambles to turn the tap on and thrusts her hands under the water, not caring about the temperature. She isn’t going to _taste_ anything. It’s bad enough that she had an orgasm while getting Ben off - er, while _helping her friend_ \- and she doesn’t want to complete the whole pervert vibe by licking his cum. 

Besides, that’s gross, right? She’s never liked swallowing - in fact, the one and only blowjob she ever gave was rather unpleasant - but now she’s acting like eating up his spend is the best thing she could do right now. 

What the fuck is wrong with her?

She pauses as she washes up, lingering on her reflection once more. It’s her eyes that have made her look so different, she realizes. Normally, they’re hazel. A light shade of moss mixed with tawny brown. 

And right now, they’re _green_. Distinctly and entirely green. 

Numb with shock, Rey looks down to watch Ben’s cum wash down the drain and though her thoughts have calmed somewhat, there is a small part of her, both alien and unfamiliar, that bemoans the waste.


	22. Perfidy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey’s hand is still out, but her fingers have curled closed like the legs of a dying spider. He slowly turns it back to him and - yep - that’s his finger scrolling on the touch screen. 
> 
> “What… what is this?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh Rey.   
> Not a lot of smut this chapter, but a ton of development to get us ready for the next few chaps. Things are about to get crazy, kids. Our horror and action elements will get cranked up another level so hang on to your butts! :D
> 
> Thank you all, as always, for continuing to read and support this fic. I love responding to all your comments as much as possible because it's honestly one of the best parts of my day. So THANK YOU <3
> 
> Please give lots of love to emchewchew who created the wonderful fanart below <3

Rey checks her reflection off the shiny chrome of the kettle as though she is trying to catch herself out. Her very normal hazel eyes blink back at her in suspicion and she moves away from the kettle, only to flit back in front of it two seconds later, checking for the umpteenth time what she can’t really believe she saw in the mirror last night. 

She doesn’t know if she should tell Ben. She doesn't even know what it means. It has to be the water -  _ has  _ to be. Or else the air or something else is changing them as well. 

Or she was just so out of it from their _ activities _ that she was seeing things. Maybe. 

But that doesn’t explain how she ruined a pair of pants and underwear. Whatever it was that had come out of her after she -  _ they  _ \- finished together, which she is now convinced was a product of their shared telepathy, was some sort of slick liquid that completely soaked her bottoms. She’s heard of female ejaculation of course but this…

This is definitely not something Ben needs to know. In fact, if they never talk about that incident again, that would be fine by her. 

That does nothing for the memories though. Those are permanent. 

Rey makes her way outside, lingering by the doorway to watch Ben sleep. He’s tangled in her blankets, his head buried in her pillow as he breathes deeply and evenly. He already looks better. The dark circles around his eyes are gone and some colour has returned to his complexion. That can be her consolation for reacting such like a perv to what happened last night. She feels  _ guilty  _ of all things and she wonders how much he will remember when he wakes up. 

With a final lingering glance, she thumps outside into the cool morning air. BB is erecting the greenhouse walls now. They’ll be done soon and then she will have to deactivate him. And hopefully save him. She waves to the droid on her way by with her morning tea and he waves back. She’ll save him. She has to. 

Once she’s seated on her tree stump, she takes a moment to regard the trees. 

So much has changed in such a short period of time. Rey thinks about what the old her would have to say about all this. The version of herself that woke up at 5:30 every morning, that digested academic studies like they were oatmeal, and averted her gaze from most people’s out of some long-suffering habit of awkwardness and general social discomfort. 

She just gave a handjob to an Omega. To  _ Ben _ . They’re apparently sharing some kind of telepathic link, which should be the  _ most  _ alarming thing out of all this but that all pales to what happened last night. Because she made him come and even if he will never know, she also  _ liked  _ making him come. The very same person who tried to steal her ship and kidnap her, the person who she beat up with her helmet, scratched his face to ribbons and fought tooth and nail against on the very basis of his designation. 

The person who she  _ hated  _ until quite recently and who has suddenly become a friend. 

The person who she might be attracted to and whose friendship comes with all sorts of peculiar quirks, but who might be decent under all that surly layering. Some of the time, anyways. There is so much to worry over, so many uncertainties ahead of her, but she amazes herself when she finds herself suppressing laughter. 

She gave Ben a handjob.  _ Ben.  _

Life is weird. 

She stifles hysterical giggles into her morning tea, her eyes crinkling as she shakes her head at herself. Life is weird, indeed. 

*

Rey is preparing the mint in the kitchen when Ben finally rolls out of bed. She has a good view of the yard from here. BB works away, whirling around on its wheels and yet…

The droid stops every so often in a twitching fit, his arm whacking off his body in a poor imitation of the Ayashe. It will have to be soon. His deactivation - just the thought of it makes her feel sick. She is just wondering when they will do it, when she turns around for the cutting board and pulls up sharply. 

Ben stands at the edge of the kitchen with clean clothes fisted in his hand and his body half turned towards her bed. 

“Oh - hey.” She scratches behind her ear, her face  _ burning  _ in embarrassment. 

Well, he had to wake up some time.

He looks at her bed and then back her, and she frowns at the rising panic on his face. Does he remember? Or even worse, does he _ regret _ it? 

“There’s porridge on the stove if you -” Because she is just going to bypass all that, if it’s all the same to him. 

Only it very much  _ isn’t  _ because he cuts across her like she wasn’t even speaking to begin with. 

“Are you alright?”

She blinks at him. “Um, yes? Are you alright?”

“What happened?” 

He’s shirtless again. Why is he always shirtless? How is she supposed to concentrate when he waltzes around half naked all the time? When she looks at the carved v of his pelvis and remembers the way it was all covered in…

Then, she does a double take and realizes he just asked her a question. 

“What?”

“What. Happened?”

“When?”

An odd look comes over his face, too fleeting to be true amusement. “Last night.”

She quickly turns away from him to hide the redness of her face. “Do you not remember?”

“Rey.”

Her spine prickles, maybe from his low, tentative tone, or maybe from the way she can feel some of his anxiety leaching into the air between them. She pauses with the knife in her hand and slowly turns back to him. She doesn’t plan to do this - she just does, like his apprehension is a hook he’s placed in her guts, reeling her back to him. 

He looks at her throat, her wrists and then all over her face. 

“Ben, we really don’t have to -”

“Did I - Rey, you have to tell me if I forced myself on you or -”

“ _ What? _ Oh my god -  _ no _ . No, you didn’t do anything like that. It was…. I just - er - helped you a bit.”

That word doesn’t seem to have as strong of an effect on him, which is good really because she isn’t prepared for a repeat of last night. Her ever-loving sanity can only handle so much. 

“...you, helped me.”

“Just - you know - I didn’t look or anything.”

She absolutely did. She can draw his cock from fucking  _ memory  _ if she wanted to. 

“You didn’t look.”

“No. Of course not. It was all very… respectful. And platonic. Well, you know, as platonic as it could be.”

“And how exactly did you help me?” He’s not worried anymore, she thinks. His eyes are narrowed in speculation, like he might be plotting something or trying to figure out if she is. 

Rey cuts her gaze away and goes back to chopping the mint. “Well, it was just - you know - a friend helping a friend. In a platonic -”

“Respectful way?”

She blushes. “There was some touching.”

Rey would love it very much if a meteor would come careening out of the sky and strike her dead. That would be perfect. 

“Can you be a little more specific?” He’s looking down at the floor, lips folding together like he’s concentrating really hard. Or trying to remember, more aptly. 

She knows she couldn’t stand not knowing if their roles were reversed, so she steals herself and blurts it out just so they can get this conversation over with and then pretend it never happened. 

“I used my hand. On you.”

For some reason, Ben chooses this moment to meet her gaze. He holds it almost effortlessly, despite her need to not to. She can’t look away from him and there might be a hint of knowing in his eyes now.

“I see… and did we -?” 

“ _ No! _ ” She rocks back on her heels when she realizes she kind of just screamed this at him. She clears her throat and swallows. “No. Just touching.”

“You just touched me, or did I touch you too?”

She thought that part would be obvious and doesn’t really understand why he’s asking. 

“I touched you - after getting your permission of course.” He nods after that and looks away to the window. She wants to reassure him and she doesn’t understand the impulse, but she’s helpless to resist it. “Look, you were very sick. I’m not - this isn’t a big deal or anything. I know I’m not the ideal candidate for -” She  _ almost  _ says his heat and trips herself up, flushing when his gaze flits back to her, “- um, well, you know… But I’m okay. You know, as long as you are. So, um, are you?”

“Am I what?” He sounds low and almost teasing despite the fact that she can’t detect much amusement or  _ anything  _ from his expression. 

She tugs on her sleeve and shrugs a shoulder at him. “Are you okay? With what happened and… everything.”

He looks at her for a moment longer and then taps the counter. “What is that?”

“Wha - oh! These are mint leaves - or what passes for mint here, anyway. I found it growing by the perimeter. I think it will be good for tea once I dry it out.”

Suddenly, Ben’s whole demeanor changes. He goes stiff and when his eyes meet hers this time, she’s convinced he knows why she picked so much of it. 

“For tea.” Barely any inflection at all in his voice now. 

Rey nods and offers him a weak smile. “I’ve also read that mint is good for headaches. It acts as a mild anti-inflammatory.”

“Hm. And what else have you read?” 

He’s walking towards her now and though she isn’t afraid, not even a little, she backs up with his advance. She feels like she’s caught in the crosshairs of a stalking cat, like a gazelle that has suddenly realized there is something watching her in the tall grass with hungry interest. He drops his shirt on the counter without taking his eyes off of her and there it goes, there her rapid heart and sanity in one fell swoop. 

He must see her racing pulse point in her throat because his eyes dip down there before returning to hers. 

“Well, it can also clear up stuffy sinuses.” 

It feels like the wrong time to talk about clogged noses but she sort of forgets her own name when her back hits the counter. He crosses most of the distance between them in an unhurried manner, the muscles in his stomach twitching. 

And she remembers that too. How his abs contracted when he… when  _ they…  _

“Interesting.” 

He sounds interested, but she doesn’t think it’s because of the health properties of mint leaf. She thinks he sees the lie written all over her face, or that he might even hear it as an echo in his own mind. 

“Well, I thought it would be good in tea. For a different flavour. And because of the aforementioned effects. You’re… welcomed to have some if you want.”

Ben is less than a foot away from her and she has to tilt her head back to meet his gaze now. He looks down his long nose at her, a light, barely-there smirk quirking his lips. His scent blooms in the air, light and pleasant, and she finds her lips parting just a little, so she can taste him on the roof of her mouth. 

She feels a little drunk right now, which is odd. Really odd and interesting but when he leans in to reach for something over her head, she goes still on a held breath. 

“Well, it would be rude of me not to accept your offering,  _ Noomaya. _ ”

She feels like her spine might melt into warm goop and that her head is swimming with his scent even though it’s softer than when he was in heat. 

“My… offering?”

His smirk widens, just for a moment, and then he grabs a mug off the shelf above her and draws away, flicking on the kettle as he goes. His back is all wide plains and carved muscle and she finds she has to rub her chest. 

It’s fluttering again. 

“Can you pour me a cup? I’m going to shower.”

Then, he waltzes out of the kitchen like he wasn’t practically bed-ridden for the last week. 

Before he can disappear around the corner she repeats her question from before. “Are you okay, Ben?”

She  _ needs  _ to know. She couldn’t bear it if she traumatically scarred him in any way. 

Ben stops without turning back to her and she can just see his profile. Can just make out that tiny little smirk. 

“I am now.”

With that esoteric little statement, he vanishes into the bathroom, leaving Rey to shiver by the sink in a spell of hazy bemusement. She shifts her legs together and then stops, frowning. 

Her underwear is wet again. 

*

Rey never had a diary growing up. 

There wasn’t paper or many tablets to go around at the orphanage. All she had was her oversized brain and her studies. She never lingered over emotional toils as a child because there wasn’t any point. What was done, was done and the rest was a learning experience. 

Things have changed a lot since those dim days. 

_ She _ has changed and it would not be so alarming to her, really, if it wasn’t for the fact that these changes are coming on so rapidly, she can hardly keep up with them. She can’t catch her breath, nor process it all and disseminate all the data because it is all over the place. Scattering her to the mercy of the wind. 

All she has is her scanner to help her sort it out. A tiny gadget that for all intents and purposes has become her own personal diary. There, she can document her findings and data. But, increasingly, she is also documenting her thoughts and feelings as well. Her  _ emotions _ . 

She wants to blame this on Ben, on the planet, on  _ everything  _ that has happened since their fateful crash on this rock. She wants so badly to point the lens in a different direction. It’s not logical, or scientific, however she can’t change how she feels.

She knows the truth. Whatever the water might be doing to her, she is wholly aware that she is just  _ changing _ . As a person, as a woman even. And not all of these changes are bad. 

Her latest entry into her scanner takes her the better part of the hour later that afternoon. If not for the content, for the way she keeps drifting off in thought. 

Remembering things she should just let go. 

  * _I assisted with Ben’s heat._


  * That sounds brutal and clinical doesn’t it? But that was what I was going for - just to help him because he was so sick and his heart rate was all over the place. I thought I was going to have to restart it at one point. That he might die. So I did what I had to prevent that, but... 


  * I tried to remain detached throughout the event. He was helpless and I… I feel like I took advantage of him, even though he has (more or less) assured me I didn’t. The fact that I might have enjoyed what happened - it’s awful. Creepy. He would be furious. Probably, though are times that I wonder if he - but no. No, it’s not possible. I shouldn’t even let myself think like that. 


  * I am still processing this. Not sure where we stand now. 


  * During - it - something strange happened. Well, many strange things happened and they are continuing to happen. I am noting changes in myself, keeping track in my other log pertaining to suspected water effects, but **these** ones I am going to keep separate for now. I’m not ready for Ben to know. 


  * My eyes changed colour after I… shared an orgasm with Ben - at least that is what I think happened, but I’m not sure. It felt different than when I am alone, like I was experiencing his sensations. It was… overwhelming. 


  * As for the eyes changing, I can’t make heads or tails of that. Only that it seemed so similar to when… No, I can’t. I can’t accept that. Will just need to drink more water for scientific analysis. 


  * I also seemed to have developed a mysterious discharge. It’s not an infection or anything, but the scanner came back inconclusive. It happened last night and then again after Ben and I spoke in the kitchen, though not as badly as the first time. I’ve noticed it only happens when… oh hell, I’ll just say it. When I become aroused. God - why am I so impossible, with even myself? Well, anyway… will continue to monitor. I checked my implant and it is still functioning normally. 


  * There is another matter, of which I have already recorded notes. I am… developing stronger feelings for Ben. I want to care for him - I can’t describe it any other way. It’s not all the time, but there are moments when he seems vulnerable to me and I just… I just don’t know my own mind anymore sometimes. It’s like there is this other voice in my head, whispering strange commands at me. I keep ignoring it but what if I can’t eventually? What will I do?


  * I don’t know what’s happening to me - to us - but it’s getting worse. 


  * I’m scared. 



Rey stops here, listening as the washing machine goes through its last spin cycle. The blankets smelled of Ben so strongly when she went to lay down for an afternoon nap that she had to wash them. Immediately. 

Not because she wanted to. But because she  _ didn’t  _ want to. 

Her thoughts turn to when she was washing him off her hands last night and that same little voice whispers to her now that she shouldn’t be washing him off her blankets, or anything else. She clenches her jaw and ignores it, folding her arms around her legs and resting her head there as she trembles with the things she does not know. 

*

“This is amazing.”

Rey aims a quick, pointed side glance at Ben and he rolls his eyes before stuffing his hands in his pockets. 

“Yeah. Neat.”

She shakes her head, but is quick to smile when BB gives a few happy beeps. Standing tall along the eastern wall of the perimeter are three long greenhouses. They are plated in translucent plexi-glass and just the right thickness to withstand the elements. BB even erected the plant tables inside for the smaller plants and installed the UV lights, using solar panels attached to the roof of each structure. 

Φ  _ I am glad you are both pleased. With construction completed, you will be ready to start planting the seeds.  _ Φ

“Just in time too,” Rey remarks as she looks at the grey sky. She’s pulled one of her thicker sweaters on before coming outside and she shivers, wrapping her arms around herself. “It’s getting colder and colder.”

“It’s not  _ that  _ cold.” Ben shoots her a strange look and she shoots one right back at him, only more exaggerated. 

“I’m not taking the word of a walking furnace, so -”

“ - because of your little bird bones.”

Rey forgets BB is standing there and turns to him with a scowl. “Excuse me?”

“Scrawny little thing.” He might be smirking, just a little, as he looks her up and down. 

She prickles with irritation. The little voice in the back of her head, the one she is pretending to ignore, perks up as well.  _ Scrawny? SCRAWNY? I tackled that jackass to the floor of my ship. I am not SCRAWNY.  _

“I’m not  _ scrawny _ ,” she repeats out loud and there might be a deeper edge of her voice than there was before. “I’m a normal size and build for my height. If anything, I’ve put on a little weight since my injury so -”

“I can wrap my hand around your entire bicep.” He raises his eyebrows at her, as though daring her to challenge him and she…

Blushes bright red. 

He could be referring to any number of times that he’s touched her arm, but based on the way his smirk turns languid, almost smug, she thinks he remembers more about last night than he let on. If she thinks about it - even a little - she can recall him touching her arm as she got him off and how she thought he wanted to  _ feel  _ her touching him. Working him and…

Φ  _ Madam Rey, would you like me to hook up the sprinkler system in the greenhouses with the recycled water from the hatch, or a ground source?  _ Φ

Rey coughs and looks away from Ben. From that damned mischievous twinkle in his eye too. The voice subsides as well, thoroughly nettled by his smugness. 

“Sure.”

Φ  _ Sorry Madam Rey, I do not understand. Would you like me to use the recycled water or the groundwater?  _ Φ

“Oh, um… the ground water I guess. Best to see if anything we brought will grow naturally.”

She avoids looking at Ben now, knowing that he will have realized she wasn’t at all listening to BB. 

_ Damn him. _

A cold breeze kicks up loose dirt around them. The dampness of the air does nothing to help the chill and Rey shivers with it, curling her arms tighter. Ben makes a tutting sound from beside her, but she refuses to so much as glance at him. BB keeps talking about the soil and fertilizer, about how he found a deposit of mineral rich dirt less than a kilometer from the compound. She listens to him because this is important, this is how they will grow food and live sustainably on this planet, but it really is cold and soon her teeth will start chattering, which she hates because it’s almost impossible to stop once it starts, and…

Vanilla. Warmth.  _ Soft.  _

Rey jumps like she has been shocked and turns to see Ben drawing away from her. Only now he isn’t wearing his jacket. 

It’s draped over her shoulders. 

He looks amused, likely because he expects her to make a stubborn comment about it, but her tongue is mysteriously stuck to the roof of her mouth. The little voice has nothing to say to this either, other than a mysterious purring sound. Like a fucking cat. 

Rey chokes out a quiet “thanks” and looks away before she can catch the way his smirk falters. 

This is fine. She is cold and he is just being nice, in his own smarmy way. Maybe that’s an Omega trait. Killing those around you with a mixture of kindness and thorny surliness. Just to drive everyone mental and keep them guessing. She’ll notate that in her scanner later, or maybe she’ll just go lie down. His jacket is warm and it smells nice. Like home and comfort and safety…

Rey tries to surreptitiously fold the jacket around her tighter as she struggles to listen to BB. Ben says something to him about the gate latch on the fence and how they should install a better lock on it. 

His voice is nice too, she thinks. Like his jacket. 

Her eyes become lidded as the sounds of the world slowly fade away. There is an itchy tingle on the roof of her mouth. It spreads rapidly as she cuddles into his jacket, right into her teeth. She turns slowly to Ben but he’s too busy talking to the droid. She watches how his jaw and lips shift when he talks, and the delicate arch of his cheekbones and the pretty brown of his eyes. 

The itch intensifies. It almost feels like a vibration, from her teeth to her jaw and down into her throat. Her gaze dips down to his mouth again, lingering on his plush lips, and then follows the arch of his jaw. All the way down to his throat, to…

His gland is peeking out from under his hair. 

She likes his hair. It’s soft, like his jacket and his sweet scent. Though really she is transfixed on that pink little gland, straddling the soft hollow of his throat by his Adam’s apple. 

Her mouth floods with saliva. 

All she can hear is her pulse pounding in her ears - or maybe it’s not her pulse at all. Maybe it’s  _ his _ because she can see the artery that runs beside his gland, thumping away. The world becomes funnelled down to that pink little swell of flesh, to his scent and warmth and she could just walk right up to him right now and take care of this mind-numbing itch in her teeth. He would be grateful, she thinks. He would turn his head to the side, make room for her, maybe even hold her up by the skinny bird bones of her arms so she could just…

“...you think? Slow the fuck down, I’m only beginning to understand all that beeping shit. Alright well, we’ll have to see what the genius thinks over here.”

The world snaps back to her like an elastic band. 

Before Ben can turn to her, she spins on her heel and hobbles towards the house. She left her crutch inside because she didn’t anticipate she would be running anywhere. But she is now. She has to get away from him. Right now. 

She swallows back saliva as she makes it to the stairs and she doesn’t stop, not even when both Ben and BB call her name. 

“Bathroom emergency!” she calls over her shoulder and she doesn’t even have the wherewithal to be embarrassed by that. 

She just has to go,  _ go, go, go.  _

His jacket almost slips off her shoulders and she snatches it with a hiss that does not at all sound like her. She wants to get away from his scent but she can’t bear to be parted with his jacket. Her instincts and emotions whip around into a confusing frenzy and when she gets through the front door and turns to close it, Ben is already halfway to the porch. His face is lilted with concern, but doesn’t she  _ need  _ his concern. 

She needs to get the fuck  _ away.  _

Rey slams the door so hard, a pot falls off the little hook over the island and crashes to the floor. She barely hears it. Her pulse is a steady roar as she practically flees across the living room. Bathroom. She’ll lock the door. Barricade it. Sleep in the tub from now on and drink water out of the faucet. Ben can shove food under the door for her, right? That’s a reasonable thing to ask him to do because if he comes near her right now…

Her teeth prickle and just as Ben opens the front door, his voice filling the room with words she can’t recognize in her state, she runs into the bathroom, shoves the door closed and locks it for good measure. 

Then, she kind of just melts there, against the wood of the door. Sliding to the floor in a puddle of hysterical confusion. 

What is happening to her? 

She can’t think and she  _ needs  _ to think. That is all she is, a gigantic brain with too many thoughts, but right now she feels like running. Away from here, from this place with its delectable scent and its delectable Omega. 

Until a new thought enters the fray. It’s the little voice, the one murmuring its nonsense in the back of her mind. Only now it doesn’t seem so nonsensical to her. She could leave… or she could  _ stay _ and the delectable Omega could be hers.  _ Her _ Omega. 

That purring sound returns to her head, only this time.... 

It’s like the slow turn in horror movies, when the brave heroine realizes the killer is right behind her. Only there isn’t a killer; it’s just her here and when she slowly reaches up to her throat, she feels it. 

Her throat is vibrating. 

“ _ Oh my god _ .” 

Her voice shakes with it too, this low, almost silent _purring_ because he could be _her_ Omega. He might like the purring too. He might _love_ it. She doesn’t know how to make him hers yet but she will figure it out. She’ll make that strong, sturdy and willful Omega come around to her. Maybe she’ll pick more mint leaves. Fucking bushels of them. Enough to last him til kingdom come. 

“Rey?”

His voice is right outside the door and it’s like a light switch, only instead of light, her underwear dampens, like her vagina operates on voice command.  _ His  _ voice command. 

“Go away.” She sounds out of breath, her voice pitched deeper than normal. 

Ben scoffs through the door. “What’s wrong? Did you eat something funny?”

She pulls in a deep breath, but all she gets is  _ Ben _ . It’s the jacket, she realizes. She tears it off herself, hurls it into the tub violently like it’s a snake and then...

It’s a tiny bit easier to breathe again. 

“Rey?” The door rattles when he tries to open it and she panics. 

“Yes! Yes I - ate something.” She sounds choked up enough that he could think she just vomited. Maybe. “I’m just going to stay in here for a little while until my stomach calms down.”

He doesn’t leave. Why isn’t he leaving? 

The door creaks and she can feel it right down to her bones. He’s leaning on it, she thinks. They’re only separated by two inches of wood and… 

_ Okay. Okay breathe Rey. Breathe. You’re not going to attack Ben. Or - or - bite him. Or something fucking crazy like that. You’re just… fine. You’re fine.  _

“Do you need anything?” He asks this in a quiet, almost dragging way. Not like his Heat Voice, as she has dubbed it, but quieter. Almost coaxing. 

That little voice in her head rears up and before she can control it, she snaps, “I don’t  _ need  _ anything. I’m  _ fine. _ ”

She freezes, wincing at her sharp tone, yet to her absolute befuddlement, she hears his deep, soft laughter through the door. 

“Alright,  _ Noomaya.  _ I’ll be outside then.” His footsteps thud across the house. 

She doesn’t breathe until the front door closes. 

After what could be only a few minutes, or even a half hour, Rey shakily gets to her feet. She isn’t all that surprised when she looks in the mirror to find that her eyes have changed again. 

They’re green. Brilliant, shimmering green. 

*

_ "What are you doing?" she asks him.  _

_ His scent is everywhere and so is he. Lips on her throat, teeth nibbling sensitive flesh. His hands all over her, touching, taking. Skin to skin.  _

_ Then he grips her thighs and parts them.  _

_ "What do you think?" he rumbles into the hollow of her throat and soon there is pressure.  _

_ It's everything she has ever needed.  _

_ "Please Mishi," she whispers into his hair. "Please, please, please." _

_ He makes a broken sound and then his nibbles turn less tentative and when his teeth break skin, she shatters apart beneath him.  _

*

Rey wakes up on the couch, half slumped over against the arm, and vows to herself never to nap again if those are the kinds of dreams she is going to have. She hasn’t seen the horse in quite some time and she wonders if it is the same for Ben too. If there is no fox yipping at his heels and if, maybe, he might be having these other dreams instead.

When she goes to the bathroom, she finds she has ruined yet another pair of underwear. 

*

The scent of mint precedes Ben when he joins her on the porch with a steaming mug of tea. She ignores the pleasant tingle she gets from the knowledge he is drinking it and that it might be helping him after all. He certainly seems a lot better now. 

From her offering, as he called it. 

“Are you deactivating him tonight?”

BB skitters around the compound, tidying up all the loose materials he did not need for the greenhouses. He seems perkier than he has been in quite some time. Still twitching on and off, but now that there is hope to fix him, he is almost acting like his old self. 

“One more day,” Rey murmurs, watching the droid with a sad smile. Now that the time has come and there are no other projects in the way, she finds she does not want to do it. 

“What’s the point in prolonging it?” 

She aims a sullen glare Ben’s way. “I’m not  _ prolonging  _ anything. We’ll do it tomorrow. What’s one day going to change?”

She looks back out at the yard and pulls in a pacifying breath. After what happened earlier, she has remained in a listless fog of fatigue and denial all day. Those heady urges haven’t returned, thankfully. She was even able to cook with Ben sitting at the island and even though she’s ignored him for most of the afternoon, and he suspiciously hasn’t said a word about it, she is nervous. 

She wanted to bite him earlier. She wanted it so badly her teeth ached with it. 

Maybe she should tell him. He deserves to know if his safety is in danger. They shouldn’t drink anymore water - not if this is what is happening to her. It’s always affected her more strongly - between what happened when she almost died, the dreams, and now whatever  _ this  _ is - she doesn’t even recognize herself anymore. 

Why would the Ayashe want them to drink something that they react to so violently? Just for its healing properties? While that’s great and everything, she doesn’t know if the tradeoff is worth it. 

“We had a dog when I was a kid.” 

Rey looks up from where she is sitting on a stool. He’s got one hand in his pocket and he’s leaning against one of the beams of the porch, his mug in the other hand while he watches BB work. 

“Alright?”

“He was smart. He used to warn us if the droids were coming - would go fucking ballistic if anything came within two feet of me or my mother.”

Rey shifts in her spot and she thinks she knows where he is going with this, but she doesn’t interrupt this time. 

“One day, he got bit by a raccoon. It was rabies, I think. He started acting differently, got all aggressive with my mom. But he still let me pet him, right until the end.” He looks at her then and she can feel his pain like a ghost. Whispered between them on a tenuous thread. “I had to shoot him. My father made me do it because he said it would make me stronger.”

Rey balks, horrified. “How old were you?”

“Seven.” He doesn’t betray any of his emotions on his face. It’s all on the inside, all that lingering guilt as sharp as glass. 

She flinches from it like it cut her too. 

“Your father made you shoot your dog when you were seven?”

“He’s a bastard,” he says casually, like everyone’s fathers are bastards. “But he didn’t know better. That was his way.”

“Because he’s an Alpha?”

Ben pauses with his mug to his lips. “Because he’s who he is.”

Rey adjusts so that she is facing him properly. “Are you saying I should deactivate BB because it will hurt him less?”

“Because it will hurt you less.” He nods at her, like her incredulity is just a thin veneer through which he can see her own guilt and hesitation. “What my father made me do was brutal. I’m not disputing that. But my dog would have suffered. He was dead the moment that raccoon bit him, I just couldn’t accept it. If I didn’t shoot him, he could have infected myself and my family, and then we would have all been dead. The difference here is that my dog didn’t understand what was happening to him. BB does. He’s already accepted it.”

She thinks she would be angrier with him right now, but it isn’t until she replays his words that she realizes he has called BB by his name. Not even his  _ full  _ name, but by the nickname she gave him. 

A first, as far as she knows. 

Rey stews on that for a moment before replying. “Well, I’m not just going to give up on him. I fully intend on fixing him -”

“I know you do.” He smiles faintly, gaze flitting across the freckles on her face. “My dad would have liked you.”

“I’m not sure that’s a compliment.”

He shrugs. “It’s not anything. He just would have. You’re as stubborn as he is.”

“And you’re not?”

His smile grows crooked and there is something almost endearing about the way he looks at her that makes her avert her gaze. “Not quite as much as you are.”

She sniffs at him and together they turn to regard BB piling some particle boards together by the hatch. 

“Tomorrow,” she says, quietly. 

“Tomorrow then.” Ben sips his tea and she thinks it will be the end of it after that, until he taps the railing. He does that a lot when he’s unsure about something, though she wonders if she has realized this more so because she can sense his uncertainty. “How are you feeling?”

Rey stiffens and it’s funny then, how their roles have suddenly reversed.

“Fine?” It comes out like a question because it’s easier to pretend to be thrown by his concern than to address it. 

“You look pale.”

Her gaze cuts to him only to flit away. “I’m tired.”

“From the vomiting, right?”

Her stomach fists together unpleasantly. She forgot that was the excuse she made and judging from the shrewd way Ben’s looking at her, she wonders if he knows this as well. 

“It’s been a long week.” 

_ Good evasion, Kenobi.  _

Ben stares at her for a long time and she thinks he might call her on it. Wasn’t she the one yelling at him not to keep secrets?

“It has.”

He swirls his tea around and then casually lopes down the stairs without another word, his breath fogging up in the cool air.

Rey stays where she is, shivering miserably. She left his jacket folded on one of the chairs in the kitchen. Ben didn’t move it when he found it there, opting to just wear a t-shirt instead. 

She wishes he took it. It’s like his jacket is calling to her, tempting her back to its warm scent and lulling insanity.

_ I could go get it. _

“No,” she whispers out loud, like she’s arguing with a real person instead of a figment of her imagination. “I won’t. I’m in control here. Not you.”

It’s too bad, really, that she doesn’t believe that. 

*

It’s raining the morning they deactivate BB. 

Φ  _ Please make sure to sweep out Greenhouse 3 for me. I ran out of time this morning.  _ Φ

BB’s beeps are quieter than normal. Subdued and worrisome. Rey has part of his dome head open, where she can see the small switch that will turn him off. 

She’s trying to keep it together. The droid doesn’t need to see her crying and neither does Ben. She’ll do that later, alone. 

“Of course BB.” 

Φ  _ And please take care of Madam Rey.  _ Φ

Ben must be picking up Basic because he seems to understand the droid perfectly. “If she lets me.”

Her blush is almost perfunctory at this point. She’s full of misgivings about the whole thing and had a fight with Ben earlier about putting this off another day. But he’s right, as much as it pains her to admit it. They need to do this now, so she can get to work on fixing him. 

“We’ll take care of each other,” she says with a quick glance to Ben. 

For once he doesn’t dole out a sarcastic comment. He only nods, his shoulders stiff and jaw clenched tight. There’s mist in his hair, those soft black waves hanging in his face. She has a sudden and strong urge to push them back for him. 

Luckily her hands are full of tools right now. 

“Okay BB. Ready?” She isn't, not by a long shot, but it’s for the best. 

_ For the best, for the best, for the best.  _

Φ _ I am ready, Madam Rey. It will be like falling asleep and then waking up, as humans are fond of saying before surgical procedures. A blink and then I’ll be back.  _ Φ

Her eyes prickle and a pang goes through her chest, but she manages to steady herself. 

“That’s right BB. Just a blink.”

BB beeps once and then inclines its dome head towards her. 

Φ  _ Proceed, Madam Rey.  _ Φ

She clicks the switch. 

BB slumps forward with a dull clunk. All his lights go out at once and then it goes silent on the porch, with the rain providing a quiet white noise. 

The prickling gets worse. 

She sniffles once, then twice but keeps holding it back. Holding it all back because she has to get his wires back in. She does this carefully, with almost prissy precision, and though she expects Ben to leave, he doesn’t. 

Once she’s done, she finds she cannot stand to look at BB this way. All slumped and vacant, like a spent car battery. She rises from the stool and looks to the rain outside, only her vision is splintering the rain-washed world into green and grey prisms. 

She’ll go sweep Greenhouse 3. That’s what she’ll do because she said she would. 

Rey brushes past Ben, hoping to escape with some quiet dignity so she can bawl her eyes out far away from him. 

His warm hand catches on her arm. 

“ _ Noomaya, _ ” he murmurs, but she won’t look at him, even when he bends his head to capture her gaze. 

“Let me go.”

“Rey.”

“Let me go. I have to go tidy up the greenhouses.” Her voice sounds all wrong, like she has a cold. 

And he still won’t let go. 

“No.”

“ _ Ben _ . I said I would do it.”

“I know you did. And we will, just…”

She’s never liked for people to see her cry. She supposes most people don’t. Crying is like vomiting; you’re in this state of complete vulnerability, where you have no control over your facial expressions. You’re compelled to the moment, to the whims of your body, and you can’t stop until you’re done. 

The thought of Ben seeing her like this not only makes her more upset, but gives her a weird surge of aggression. She very nearly bares her teeth at him; the instinct is there, her lips are curling, but before she can do it, he’s pulled her into his orbit. 

And in the end, she just lets it happen because he’s warm and smells like safety. She’s helpless against that. 

She sobs into his chest as his arms come around her and it’s like being a small child again. Like her mom is hugging her after a bad spill off her bicycle. Like she is safe here, to release the flood of worries and fears that have been plaguing her for so long. 

She cries for BB. A droid. Her friend. 

“What if it doesn’t work? What if I can’t fix him?”

Ben doesn’t answer these questions because he can’t. 

She always hated when people told her everything was going to be okay. Most of the time it wasn’t and before long, she grew resentful of those passing reassurances. Those cheap lies. 

Instead he says nothing. He offers no condolences and does not ask for strength in return, nor for her to buck up and get over it, as everyone else in her life has. He just holds her, just rests his chin on the top of her head and says nothing when she burrows closer into his chest like he might take away all her hollow fears. 

She thinks nothing of what came before this moment or what will come after. There is only rain and vanilla, only him and her brunting the storm. 

*

The next day, Ben makes her practice with the crossbow. The light it produces for her is feeble, though he has managed to get better results, especially after drinking the water so recently. 

“Why is that? Why does it give out more light with us drinking the water?”

Ben has hands on his hips as he studies the way she uses the weapon. She almost feels like she’s back in weapons training, only her instructor was a lot nicer when she missed her target. 

And a lot less impatient too. 

“Why did you bring yourself back to life? Why are we reading each other’s minds?” He gestures to the sky, as though the answers are there for her to see. “Who fucking knows,  _ Noomaya _ ?”

“So you don’t care to know why? Not at all?” She can’t just accept that she has these new abilities. Not without understanding exactly how and why they came to be. 

Ben only laughs at her. “We don’t know right now and we can’t know. So until we do, I say let that buzzing brain of yours take a break. You’re going to drive yourself crazy - well, crazier than you already are.”

She gives him a withering look. “But -”

“No.” He looks serious then, like this is a rudimentary concept she keeps failing to understand. “We use this to survive, just like everything else. Until we can know the whys and hows, that’s all we have. Now stop fucking around and shoot that thing. You’re on first watch tonight.”

She raises the crossbow towards the sky and huffs a breath. Bright white light shoots out of the end in a dwindling arc, far out of sight. 

*

Their telepathy has grown unpredictable. 

They’ve avoided the water ever since the last incident. She can’t even look at the pouches without thinking about how she tumbled into his head. Into his memories. And that in turn leads her to thinking about the other things that happened. 

How she  _ helped  _ him. 

It’s dangerous to think about anything remotely sexual, especially as it pertains to him, so she shoves it away. 

But the morning after they deactivate BB, she swears that Ben complains to her about having porridge again for the millionth day in a row. Out loud. In words. She swears it because that’s how _ clear _ he sounds to her. 

“The fruit will take time to grow,” she replies through a mouth full of the gelatinous swill. “I know you prefer that, but we’re both just going to have to suck it up til then.”

She looks up from her own unappetizing breakfast to find Ben glaring at her. 

“What?”

“I can see why you find that annoying.”

“Find what annoying?”

“Eavesdropping.” 

He stays grumpy all morning, which does nothing for her own grumpiness of course. 

*

Rey works on BB for two days straight. 

The nodes are stubborn. They don’t want to come free, like they know what she is trying to do. She keeps at it anyways. 

When she isn’t working on the droid, she and Ben begin planting the seeds. Gardening is hard work. Her training did not really prepare her for the realities of natural soil. In the bunkers, they had UV lights and pre-mixed pots in a large storage area. 

Here, they have shovels, broken and bleeding fingernails, and dirt smeared skin. Gardening is hell, but they keep at this too because their tempers get short when they’re cooped in the house and it’s only getting colder outside. The heater will keep the plants warm, of course, but if it gets cold enough and god forbid,  _ snows _ then they will want to have most of the planting done. 

And there is another thing that has begun to worry them both, even if Rey is the only one who is vocal about it. The Ayashe have not returned in some time. She cannot help but fear that something bad has befallen them, or at least prevented them from returning. She tried to broach the subject of them leaving the compound to find them but Ben went ballistic and looked like he was ready to tie  _ her  _ to a chair if she brought up again. 

So, they’ll just have to hope and wait they return. That they’re alright. 

And to top it all off, her other problem is getting worse. If it does snow and they’re stuck inside - together - for all hours of the day, then… 

She really doesn’t know what she is going to do. 

*

Rey doesn’t know what compels her to turn the scanner on herself one night and check her DNA. Maybe it’s a hunch. Maybe it’s the fact that while she hasn’t had as extreme of a reaction to Ben’s scent since the day with his jacket, they are still sleeping in the same room. 

He’s just there. All the time. In her space. 

She goes through bouts of extreme aggravation over this fact and other, more troubling spells of having little fantasies about “accidentally” throwing his mattress over the side of the cliff so he has to sleep in  _ her  _ bed again. And that she might like him to build  _ her  _ a nest with blankets that  _ she  _ makes him. 

Because suddenly, she has taken up knitting. 

Before she deactivated BB, he showed her where the fabrication materials were in one of the containers downstairs. When she’s not arguing with Ben over stupid, little things like where the carrot seeds should go versus the cucumbers and how he takes far too much time in the shower, when they’re not playing Sabacc (her, badly enough that she wonders why she doesn’t just give up on the game), or she’s just trying to pretend she doesn’t want to bury her nose in his throat, she knits. 

About which Ben finds exceedingly amusing. 

“So the great Feminist and Eminent Swot is suddenly into matronly pursuits. Colour me surprised.”

“I’ll colour you something if you don’t shut your face.”

When he laughed at her, she had the distinct urge to throw her knitting on the floor and  _ pounce  _ on him. So she knits outside when she can. 

Which is just a few reasons why she suddenly felt the need to check her DNA. Just to be sure. 

Rey starts pacing as the scanner tabulates, peeking outside every few minutes to make sure Ben isn’t about to barge into the house. She took a blood sample from herself, the whole works, and if the scanner could hurry up and give her the bloody results that would be - 

It blinks across the screen. 

Rey stares. And stares. And  _ stares.  _

The funny thing is that she isn’t even surprised. Not after everything that has been happening to them. To  _ her _ . When she left Earth, her blood type was O Negative. When she left Earth, her sub-species classification was Beta. 

Like every other scan she has taken of the plants and animals of this planet, both now read as inconclusive.

*

“Ready to be annihilated?”

Rey eyes Ben over her cards and chews on her cheek in thought. 

He’s sipping on more mint tea and wearing a navy blue henley. His hair is freshly washed, shining soft and almost dark brown instead of its normal black. His smug little grin does nothing for her nerves. She has to wipe her palms on her skirt a few times just to be able to hold her cards properly. 

It’s hot in here tonight. Or at least it seems that way to her but he looks perfectly comfortable in his tight fitted shirt, where she can see…

She swallows and lifts in her chin in challenge. 

“I want to change the bet.”

He arches his brow. “Really?”

“Instead of chores, why don’t we get to know each other better?”

Ben’s smirk turns wicked and she once again has to battle against the urge to just - 

“I don’t know,  _ Noomaya _ . That might violate the tenets of our platonic arrangement. Wouldn’t really be  _ respectful _ .”

“Don’t be crass,” she says primly (which, of course, is totally ruined by her blushing for the umpteenth time). “I mean it. We should - strengthen the bonds of our friendship.”

She smiles faintly at her own joke, but mostly she’s nervous as hell. She has a hypothesis. It’s a terrible hypothesis and she has no idea  _ how  _ such a thing could happen, but it would explain many things. She thinks, anyways. She needs more data. 

Ben sighs. “What are your terms?”

“If I win a round, I get to ask you a question. You have to answer it with the truth. If you win a round, vice versa.”

“What if I know everything I need to know about you?” His eyes twinkle merrily and she scowls at him. 

“You’ll find I’m full of surprises.” Boy, is she fucking ever lately. 

He tilts his head curiously and then nods in agreement. “Fine.”

“Great, I’ll deal -”

“I want an amendment to that.”

Rey sags back in her seat. “Of course you do.”

“It can’t be anything overly personal.”

“Define personal.”

“As in, about our past. Just - make it neutral, alright?”

She wonders if he is tired of fighting with her. She has been a bit prickly the last few days and though he doesn’t know why, besides the fact that BB is basically a lump of metal on the porch right now, he must know something is off. 

Rey takes the deck and starts dealing. “Nothing personal, then.”

They play the first round and Ben wins. Predictably. She hopes she can win at least a few. She just needs him to tell her a few things. Just to confirm her hypothesis, or to confirm she might be losing her mind. One or the other. 

Ben sweeps up his cards and eyes her like she’s a prized kill. Maybe this game wasn’t such a good idea after all. 

Rey tries not to show her nerves and offers him a thin smile. “Alright, fire away Sasquatch.”

He doesn’t even bother to address her nickname as he taps his cards on the table and sizes her up. 

“You hum when you’re cooking and knitting. Actually, pretty much whenever you’re doing anything.”

She rears back in surprise. “I do not.”

“Yes you do. I found it really annoying at first.”

“And now?”

“I tolerate it.” 

She narrows her eyes at him. “I’m not hearing a question.”

“What song is it?” 

That is a rather tame question out of the dozens of others he could have chosen from. 

Rey sniffs. “ _ Hey Jude _ .”

“Predictable.”

“Hey - what’s wrong with  _ The Beatles _ ?”

“Nothing, if you like pop music.”

“They were pioneers of their time.”

“They were a boy-band with a  _ few  _ good songs.  _ The Stones  _ are way better.”

“Pfft, you would.”

“Like good music? Why thank you.” 

He leers when he says this and she can only shake her head at the table, blushing moronically. Blushing is still better than some of the other stuff she’s wanted to do pertaining to him. Things that she is absolutely not going to think about because she  _ almost  _ feels normal tonight. 

She just wishes it was a bit cooler in here. 

“Can you open the door a little?”

Ben laughs at her. “What is with you lately? First you’re too cold and now you’re warm. Going through menopause early? I hear that’s a bitch.”

“Do your kind not go through menopause?”

Ben stands to open the door and arches a smirk at her on his way back to the table. “Was that a question? Because you need to win a round before you can ask one of those. If you ever do win a round that is.”

_ Prick _ . 

He takes no time at all to win the next round and his next question has nothing to do with her humming. 

“Why did you really pick the mint leaves?”

With her persistently shitty cards in her hands, Rey stares at him like a deer caught in the headlights. She had not considered he would ask about that and she really should have. 

He’s a perceptive fucker, she’ll give him that. 

“For my tea.”

“Bullshit.”

Rey looks away and plucks at her sleeves. “I  _ did  _ pick it for my tea, only…”

“Yes?” 

He looks the way he does when they’re playing Sabacc; like he owns the room, like everything and everyone around him is at the mercy of his whims. Like he could take on an empire with nothing but a sword strapped his back and he would go on looking like that while he did it; careless with his magnificence and cunning with his knowledge of the world and all the pieces that fit into it for his amusement. 

She really doesn’t stand a chance against him at Sabacc let alone lying in such a bold-faced manner. 

“BB might have mentioned something about the leaves…” She looks up at Ben’s irate growl and quickly backpedals. “I swear I didn’t say anything to him. He just knew.”

“Knew what?”

They’ve been dancing around this for days. Her knowledge of what he is. And his knowledge of her knowledge of what he is. She already feels like she is concealing so much from him and she doesn’t  _ like  _ that feeling, despite the fact that she can’t bring herself to talk about certain things yet. 

But maybe this one thing is okay. 

So, Rey says in a voice barely above a whisper. “About you being an Omega.”

Ben doesn’t say anything for a moment. He just looks at her, tilting back in his chair with the nonchalance of a teenager. 

“Well, it’s about time you figured it out.”

Rey gawks at him. Gawks. At him. “Wha - you - well I didn’t think you wanted me to know!”

He shrugs like this hasn’t been an extremely touchy subject between them for - let’s see - the entire duration of their relationship. 

“The mint really tipped me off. As if you could really use that much of it for  _ tea _ .”

“But you never corrected me. All this time, I’ve been calling you an Alpha and I figured you didn’t -”

“Meh. It was more amusing than anything else.”

She scowls at him. “Amusing?”

He drops his chair down and grabs the deck of cards. “Right, well. Next round then?”

“ _ Ben _ .”

He throws the cards back on the table and sighs at her. “It’s really not that big of a deal. You didn’t know the difference anyways. What does it matter now?”

She plucks up her cards and rearranges them, suddenly flustered. This is encroaching on dangerous territory and she just isn’t ready for that yet. 

“It doesn’t.”

“Then why are you so upset?”

“I think your questions are up now, Sasquatch.” She throws in the nickname because she  _ isn’t  _ that mad about it. Too much has happened since then for her to think about it too much. 

Ben grunts, but doesn’t argue further. 

They play and she loses four more rounds before finally winning one. He keeps his questions light, asking her things that are mostly annoying. They bicker, which almost makes it feel like old times, like before she touched his cock and drove herself insane over him. 

And now that she has won, she tries to hide her hand in a completely different way. 

“I want to ask you about something, but you have to promise not to get all defensive and angry.”

“Well, that’s a loaded request.”

“It’s not about  _ you, _ ” Rey adds testily. “It’s just about your kind.”

His jaw shifts and he folds his lips together, regarding her warily over the table top. “Okay.”

Great. That was the hard part. Well, not really, but she’ll take a win where she can find one. 

“What is the difference between an Alpha and an Omega? Now before you answer,” she says when he slides back in his chair with a dramatic groan, “I want specifics.”

He looks up at her suddenly, his eyes narrowed. “Why?”

“I’m curious. I just went around for several months thinking you were an Alpha so I want to know the difference.”

Ben gives her a shrewd glare with entirely too little behind it and taps the table again.  _ Thump, thump, thump-thump.  _

“You want to know if all the little rumours you heard in your bunker were real or not.”

_ Well, technically… _

“Yes.”

He exhales shortly before grabbing a few of the cards and laying them on the table in clusters. She frowns at his crude diagram, but she’s far too invested now to comment on him treating her like she’s in kindergarten. 

He waves a hand over one cluster and then looks up at her. “The pride.” Then he gestures to the other, much smaller cluster, where the cards are scattered about. “The pack.”

“Are those technical terms?”

“Why? Are you writing an article about us?”

“Oh yes. I am going to publish it in Laughers Weekly with a bunch of unflattering pictures of your morning bedhead.” She actually  _ likes  _ his morning hair, but it would take wild horses to drag that out of her. “The fenrirs get a real kick out of your  _ lunar  _ horoscopes.”

“Finished?” He drawls. 

Rey shrugs and aims him with a cheeky grin. “For now.”

“The pride,” he says with a lingering scowl, “are made up entirely of Omega adults and mixed designation children. With one exception, of course.”

“The Alpha.” She isn’t smiling anymore. If anything, her mouth feels dry and not even the cool breeze from outside can reach her. 

“That’s right.”

“So, does the Alpha rule the pride?”

Ben snorts. “Like fuck they do. They just help maintain order. Most of it is posturing.”

Fascinated, Rey leans closer to inspect his demonstration more carefully. “And what about the Omegas then?”

“The Omegas are like the lionesses of the pack. They hunt, rear the children, take care of the sick and elderly. The females tend to be more reclusive, though that’s not true of all of them. There aren’t many of us left after all.”

Rey arches her brow. “And the males?”

Ben smirks at her. “Again, it varies from person to person. We’re still people with separate identities.”

“Right. Of course but - what of the instincts?”

“Which instincts are we talking about,  _ Noomaya _ ?” His grin is languid, cunning. He sure as hell owns this room, she thinks, even though a part of her would like to see what would happen if she challenged him on that. 

Say by leaping across the table onto him. 

She shakes herself of this daydream and strives for nonchalance. “You seem… territorial when the Ayashe are around. Is that true for most Omegas?”

“It depends.” She rolls her eyes at his vagueness but when he leans forward, his chair creaks with it and she stiffens. “We only get territorial when we’ve established a pride.”

“Oh.” She might sound a little squeaky. Perhaps a little pleased as well. “And uh, what of the pack then? Is that all Alphas?”

“Typically, though sometimes outcast Omegas make their way in too.” He sounds vaguely bitter when he says this and her next question is uttered before she can think to take it back. 

“Is that what happened to you?” 

When his gaze snaps to hers, it’s heated with anger and some other emotion. Perhaps regret. 

“I think I’ve answered your question quite thoroughly. Though, by my count, that was more like  _ twenty  _ questions so...”

“Wait - come on! It will be like another seven rounds before I can ask again.”

He chuckles, sweeping the cards in his large hands and shuffling them with the same flare he always does. “It’s humbling to see you admit these things,  _ Noomaya _ .” 

She doesn’t take the bait. “One more question -  _ please _ .”

She might even bat her eyelashes a little, which probably looks ridiculous, but she’s desperate. 

Ben settles the deck on the table facedown and heaves a put-upon sigh. “One more.”

This is the one she most needs to know but the one that could give her away as well. She considers making up a fake story, but he always seems to see right through her and besides - the telepathy has been really unpredictable. He could get a read on her right now and she would have no idea. 

“When did you find out you were an Omega?”

His brows wrinkle like she said the question in gibberish. “What do you mean when did I find out?”

Rey falters, struggling to find a way to ask that isn’t completely transparent. 

“I’ve heard of Omegas and Alphas presenting in puberty. Is that a thing or -?”

“No,” he says, shaking his head for good measure. “You’re born an O or an A just like you’re born a Beta. Heats and ruts develop in puberty as part of our reproductive cycle, based on the full moon but -”

“Ruts?” Rey interrupts, a little breathlessly. 

“Yes,” he says, dragging out the word like she’s said something strange. “Alphas go through ruts.”

“Both female and male?”

When he doesn’t answer right away, she repeats the question a little more firmly. 

“Yes,” he answers quietly. 

“And A and O children are always born by A and O parents, right?”

Hers were Betas. An entire bloodline of them. That was just another reason she was picked for the Revival Program. 

Ben takes longer to answer this time and she thinks she might have given something away after all. “Always.”

She doesn’t know what this means for her, only that this data has eliminated several possibilities of why this is happening to her. She looks down at the table, lost in thought, and it’s only when Ben rises from his chair that she is broken from her reverie. 

“Don’t you want to finish playing?”

He’s looking at her in a way she does not like. Like he hasn’t decided on something quite yet, but is well on his way there. 

“I think you should get some sleep. You look beat. I’ll take the first watch tonight.”

“But we said I would.”

He stops by the door to grab the crossbow and doesn’t look her way when he replies. “Just go lay down,  _ Noomaya _ .”

She’s left alone in the kitchen after that, mind buzzing with a million thoughts that are colliding into one conclusion. 

*

The last watch is always the worst. 

By this point she has usually only gotten a couple hours of sleep before Ben wakes up her to head outside with their trusty crossbow. She sits on the porch, buried under a blanket, two sweaters and her jacket, but it still doesn’t feel like enough. 

She put a sheet over BB earlier in the evening. She didn’t like looking at him like that, all collapsed in upon himself. Not that the sheet is much better. 

Rey gazes out at the three moons, always and ever lingering on the small red one. Athena. She feels calmer now. Less hectic and crazy with hormones, or whatever it is that has been running rampant in her system. Maybe it will work itself out. 

The one need she can’t deny right now is the one she thought she could hold until the end of her shift. But she  _ really  _ needs to pee. She shifts, trying to hold it for a bit longer. She always waits until the moons have almost entirely disappeared behind the mountain before switching with Ben again, but…

She has to  _ go _ . 

Rey sighs, eyeing the shadowy perimeter walls suspiciously. The proximity alerts are still active, so if anything comes while she is in the bathroom, they should hear it. She heads inside, closing the door as quietly as possible. 

She doesn’t even want to look Ben’s way. He is just a pile of blankets in the corner of her eye as she toes off her boots and tiptoes across the living room. 

_ I could curl up with him. Smell his hair, lick his glands… _

_ Stop,  _ Rey thinks at herself.  _ You were behaving so well! Just - stop it.  _

For a wonder, the voice does and she makes her way to the bathroom without much fuss. She really,  _ really  _ has to go. Serves her right for drinking tea before bed, it’s a bad habit and…

She gets to the bathroom door, only it’s closed and the light is on inside. Turning back to Ben’s bed, she realizes he isn’t there at all. Damn, she really has to go. He better hurry it. 

She shifts side to side on the spot, trying to coax her bladder into hanging on for one more minute. She doesn’t even care about having a brief run-in with him now; she’s far more concerned with not peeing her pants. 

What is taking him so long?

Rey considers knocking on the door, she really does, but something cuts that plan to ribbons. She forgets about her bladder, about the little voice and its seductive whisperings and everything else. 

Something large and heavy thumps against the bathroom door and then she hears it - a low, dragging  _ groan _ . 

Her hands fly to her mouth as she tries to contain the surprised squeak that wants to come out. Is he - can it be -  _ what is he doing in there? _

Though she already knows the answer to this question. 

Ben is in there. Ben is in there and he is…

_ Groaning,  _ deep in his chest. His voice sounds stifled, like he might be covering his mouth with something. Maybe his hand, like she is doing, or maybe something else…

The door thumps again and she realizes he is leaning against it and the small thumping she is hearing is likely his elbow, repeatedly hitting off the door, because he is…

“ _ Fuck _ ,” he whispers, so quietly and with such harshness, her cunt gives an involuntary squeeze. 

Because she knows what he looks like when he’s close - or at least what his cock looks like. Is his knot getting all puffy like it did before, or is that only during his heat? What is he thinking about in there, as he grunts and pants for air? Is he close or -?

He’s close. Rey only realizes this because he makes that sound again, like he did with her right before he came. This desperate and gravelly moan that sounds like it’s being wrenched from him with a sharp hook. 

She quivers, her insides tightening up pleasantly. Wet - she is wet, she is  _ beyond  _ wet and as she shifts in place, not because she has to pee anymore, but because of how much her clit is aching for stimulation. 

Her nipples tighten in the same instant he grounds out a long moan and she can imagine it now, how much he is cumming, how his stomach twitches and coils in a smooth ripples, how she wishes she was in there with him right now and…

When he slumps against the door, Rey becomes aware of the fact that she is standing right outside the bathroom door, her eyes as wide as a scandalized nun’s and her cheeks red with her arousal. If he comes out here, he will find her. He will  _ know  _ she just stood here and listened to him getting himself off and…

She turns around in stiff, jerky motions to go back outside. She can pee in a bush. Or behind the greenhouses. Because she isn’t a pervert who listens outside bathroom doors while her friend and roommate jerks off. Nope. No sir. 

Rey is not really paying attention to anything besides the suspicious flutter in her chest and the very real need to get outside as quickly as possible, so she doesn’t notice that she is stepping where the carpet has come up and then she’s - 

Falling. So quickly, she barely releases a surprised cry, before crashing into the floor in a painful heap. 

_ Ow,  _ she mouths, rubbing her hip. Her elbow flares in pain because of course she hit her funny bone, and just as she sits up, the bathroom door flies open.

Light spills across her in a blinding spell, illuminating her in all her graceless glory. 

“Rey? What the fuck happened?”

She holds a hand up, shielding her face as she looks up at the towering man-shadow in the doorway. Her eyes adjust after a moment and then she’s just kind of staring at him because he looks different post-orgasm. She didn’t really get it to see it last time and now…

His eyes are green and his chest is flushed red along his collar bone. She wonders how hard he tensed up when he came and quickly dispels  _ that  _ mental image when she realizes he is still waiting for an answer. 

“Rey -”

“I had to pee.” Well, she still does, but he didn’t really need to know that.

“Then why are you on the floor?”

That is an excellent question. Rey looks around her like she just realized where she was and scrambles up to her feet in an awkward jumble. Ben watches her do this, his chin tilted to the side in that measuring way of his. 

“The carpet,” she says, huffing for air because suddenly she is out of breath. She tastes him on the roof of her mouth. Like cotton candy; soft and sweet. 

He looks down at the carpet, at where it is curling up from the floor, and then back up at her. She’s probably got a nice big bruise on her hip now and there it goes, throbbing away like she knew it would. The weather isn’t helping the pain, of course, but this will make it so much worse.

“I’ll fix it tomorrow.”

“I can -” she says, but the muscles in his chest jump in a  _ really  _ fascinating way and she cuts herself off before he can.

“I’ll do it,” he murmurs and she wonders what he is looking for because he is studying her face so  _ hard _ . 

“Okay.” She nods, smiles and then laughs in a jagged way. “Well, I better get back outside.”

She nods again and then turns for the door, her smile withering away because  _ holy fucking shit, will this torture ever end?  _

“ _ Noomaya _ .” 

The way he says this, the way he draws out the last two syllables has her nipples tightening all over again. She turns back to him, not realizing that she stopped the second he spoke, and is a little horrified to see that he’s smiling at her. 

“Yes?” 

“Don’t you have to go to the bathroom?”

Rey sputters. “Right. That’s… right.”

She bites her lip and awkwardly resumes course. She expects him to move out of the way so she can get to the door, but he only does so that last second. His arm brushes hers, his inner wrist rasping against her outer thigh, and after when she is in the bathroom, trying not to breathe in the scent of his sex (because that’s  _ all  _ she wants to do) she thinks she isn’t going to last a winter locked in here with him. 

She isn’t going to last a fucking  _ week _ . 

*

Rey goes through all her notes on Ben in a fit of wonder. 

She didn’t realize how much she wrote about him. Months and months worth of notes, at least for every day since they’ve landed here. It’s impressive if not a little horrifying. She’s documented so much about him that it might look stalker-ish from the outside. 

She’s just being thorough, she tells herself. And not thinking at all about him in the bathroom, touching himself and…

“I’ve been thinking about BB.”

Rey peers up from the scanner to find the object of her thoughts standing near the island. At least he’s wearing a shirt, she muses, though these henleys he seems to be favouring lately are not much better for her sanity. She can’t say she’s ever appreciated muscular men before, but there is something about his frame and way he carries himself that doesn’t make it seem like too much on him. 

She clears her throat and makes herself pay attention. “Why is that?”

“What if you don’t have to remove the nodes?” He grabs the back of the kitchen chair and leans on it, his dark hair hanging in his face in a way that makes her really want to brush it away. 

She doesn’t of course. She can control herself. 

“But I have to remove them.” Rey puts her scanner down on the table with her notations open. She has every intention of going back over them later - for analysis of course. 

Not for any other reason. 

“What if you could burn them away instead?” He raises his eyebrows in an expectant way, like he knows all of her counter arguments before she says them. 

“If we used a torch, we would risk damaging BB.” She shakes her head in thought while he waits with far more patience than she thought him capable of. “I mean, we could use electrodes -  _ maybe _ . But we’d have to find a conductor that wouldn’t overload his systems -”

“Exactly. I think citrus juice should work.”

“I - citrus juice?” She asks, not because she doesn’t know that citric acids are good conductors, but only because they don’t  _ have  _ any oranges or lemons laying around. 

“The bananas,” he explains, smirking a little. Probably because she didn’t think of it. “Your little scanner said they contained citric acid, no?”

Rey stands up from the table, smiling in excitement. “That’s right, they do! I mean - it could work. It’s certainly possible. We’d have to monitor the voltage but -”

“It’s worth a try,” Ben finishes for her. 

“Definitely,” she agrees, and then she’s flitting around the kitchen, putting her dishes in the sink and quickly washing her hands off as she goes for her boots. 

“You want to go look for the fruit now?” he says incredulously. He watches her without moving, a crooked grin on his face like she’s an over-excited puppy who’s been told she can finally go for a walk 

But she doesn’t care because that idea is  _ brilliant _ . She’s having a hard time removing the nodes and the longer BB remains deactivated, the stronger chance his mainframe and joints might rot from the humidity. 

She hasn’t been filled with this much purpose and urgency in what feels like a very long time. 

“Why not? It’s not raining today and the trees aren’t too far from the compound. I know you don’t like the idea of us going out there, but one of us can cover the other if we move quickly. God - this is actually a great idea Ben. I can’t believe I didn’t think of it.”

“Uh huh,” he murmurs, following her around when she drops her sweater on the floor without noticing. 

She picks up her boot and doesn’t notice right away that something silver and small is bobbing up and down in the corner of her eye. 

“Woah Miss Scientist - aren’t you forgetting something?” Ben holds up her scanner, wagging it at her. 

And that’s when her stomach drops. 

The screen is still open. She never closed it and she got distracted and she forgot. She  _ forgot _ . Ben glances at it without really seeing it at first and she still has hope, when she reaches out for it, that he won’t notice what’s on it. He’s never looked at it - why would he when he despises the damn thing - but now…

He stops and looks down at it, his wry smirk fading away. 

Rey’s hand is still out, but her fingers have curled closed like the legs of a dying spider. He slowly turns it back to him and - yep - that’s his finger scrolling on the touch screen. 

“What… what is this?”

She doesn’t answer him because her vocal cords have seized. Or she’s having a stroke. She can only be so hopeful. 

He tilts his head like he doesn’t understand. Like what he’s looking at is written in Arameic. 

Every single thing she has written about him in that log flashes before her mind’s eye. Notes about his heat cycle. Notes about her theories on why he’s such an asshole, about his family and other little things he’s shared with her. Notes about her troubling suspicions about herself and about what they did when he was in heat and…  _ oh god.  _

There are the  _ other  _ notes too. Mortifying little blurbs that probably read more like a twelve-year-old’s diary than an educated adult’s notations. 

Such as what he likes in his coffee (copious amounts of sugar) and that he eats rather delicately for someone his size, or precisely what time of day she can talk to him without dealing with his morning grumpiness (usually around noon and after a few cups of said diabetic-coma-inducing coffee), or how he likes to  _ pretend  _ he isn’t listening when she tells him her theories about comic book villains, or, even better yet, how she has made a total of twelve different categories of his  _ smiles  _ for Christ’s sake. 

_ Oh my god,  _ Rey thinks. She feels cold and detached from reality as she watches his expression rapidly shift from confusion to blatant and indignant  _ fury.  _

“I can explain.” She sounds like a bad line out of a detective story when the cop gets the murder suspect in the interrogation room. Just as desperate, just as riddled with guilt. 

Ben finally looks up at her and his hand goes limp as he drops it and the scanner to his side. 

“ _ Really. _ ”

Oh, he is  _ furious _ . His voice has deepened into a fever pitch and it’s just like the beginning, when they despised each other on the very basis of their mutual being. It’s been so long since she’s seen him this angry that she almost can’t reconcile it to the Ben she knows now. 

“Yes,” she squeaks and she winces at her own voice. “I know what it looks like -”

“Oh, do you?” He closes the scanner in his fist and raises his eyebrows at her, waiting expectantly like she is explaining how to manage vapour-pressure deficit in the greenhouses. 

“- but those are just my notes. Just for me to - uh - understand you better.” 

He makes a sound that could be amusement, if only he wasn’t glaring at her like he could set her on fire with just his eyes. 

“You wanted to understand me better.”

“Yes because you’re - well - not always easy to know and I thought it would be helpful to collect notes on you. To… to understand you better.”

_ Oh my god, stop talking!  _ She wants to scream at herself, but she’s pinned in place but his outrage and she really just wants to sit down. To discover a way to rewind time and prevent this moment from ever happening. 

“You wanted to understand me better - no,  _ shut up _ ,” he growls when she goes to speak. His eyes are bright and shining, seething green. He looks her up and down like he doesn’t even recognize her and that  _ hurts _ . “By which you mean me - or  _ my kind _ ?” 

“You!” Rey cries and this is going so much worse now because she can plainly tell he doesn’t believe her. “Not -  _ of course _ that’s not what I was using it for.”

“Really, cause it looks like one of your fucking scientific studies to me.” He steps away from her, shaking his head at the wall, and then suddenly rounds back on her, his finger pointed in her face and his face red with anger. “Is that what the other night was about? Hm? Quizzing me about Alphas and Omegas.”

“No - it really wasn’t!” she says spastically. “I just wanted to know for  _ me,  _ not for -”

“God you are so full of shit,” he snarls at her and then he goes very still, like she’s zapped him with hypospanner again. “Is that… is that what you were doing when I was in heat? Hm? I thought it was sympathy, which is bad enough, but if were you doing that to get some firsthand field experience -”

Rey is so confused for a moment that she can only stare at him stupidly. Field experience? What the hell is he… talking about…

She flushes bright red and backs away from him a step in muted horror. 

“No,” she says and shakes her head for good measure. “ _ No.  _ Ben - that wasn’t -  _ god,  _ how could you even think that, let alone accuse me -”

“ _ BECAUSE OF THIS! _ ” he roars in her face and holds the scanner up like he’s presenting damning evidence at a murder trial. She thinks he means to hurl it into the wall, but he doesn’t. “Because you’ve been taking  _ notes  _ on me like I’m some new species you’ve discovered! Do you have any idea how fucked up that is?”

“It wasn’t -” 

But he won’t let her talk. Won’t let her say a word in defense. 

“Oh, it  _ wasn’t  _ a study on the big bad abhorrent? Or your fucked way to try and rehabilitate me like those motherfuckers in their ivory bunkers at home?”

“ _ What?  _ Have you lost your mind?”

He smiles at her like she said something hilarious, only it’s the ugliest and  _ angriest  _ smile she has ever seen. 

“Here - why don’t we read an entry together, shall we?” His voice is trembling, thick with mottled emotions and she goes to grab the damned thing from his hand because she can’t bear to hear this anymore, let alone listen to him read her personal notes out loud. 

He easily holds out of her grasp and starts reading from it anyways. 

“‘New Entry’,” he recites in a poor mockery of her voice, “‘Ben has been exhibiting erratic behaviour again. I think he’s sick but he won’t tell me a thing because he’s a stubborn asshole, just like always -’”

“ _ Ben _ !” Rey shouts and nearly loses her balance when she tries to jump for the scanner. Her hips still aches from her fall last night but this nothing compared to the mortification she feels from him reading her own thoughts out loud. “Stop it - that’s  _ personal  _ -”

“‘ - I think this is another abhorrency related illness. Oh, how he loves to Lord over me how wounded and damaged he is. Well, we’re all damaged. I don’t feel an ounce of pity for him. I just hope he’s more tolerable this time but he’s never been known to be all that rational anyways -’”

“ _ Tch _ !” Rey growls when he shoves her away from the scanner and then, before he can read more, she fists her hair and screams into her palms. “This isn’t -  _ you weren’t supposed to find this _ !”

Ben stops reading and glares at her, his lips curling on a sneer. 

“Oh - I’m  _ sorry _ . What a breach of privacy. What a besmirchment of  _ trust _ and basic human dignity. How fucking  _ deplorable of me _ !”

Rey falls back on the balls of her feet and just looks at him then, defeated and mortified and yes, alright,  _ shamed  _ as well. 

How can she even begin to explain to him that making friends has never been easy for her? That she grew up alone while he had his pride, or whatever the fuck he wants to call it. That he had friends and family and she had abusive orphanage guardians who would smack her if she woke them up because she got sick in the night. That she’s never understood people, let alone someone as complicated as he is, and that these notes were just a tool for her. Just a means to work out her thoughts and feelings about him, especially in the last while when things have changed so much. 

Because she’s not  _ good  _ at this. Friendship, intimacy, kinship - or any of it. 

“Nothing to say then?” 

Rey shakes her head with a short, colourless exhale of air. 

“Nothing you’ll believe,” she replies on a wounded murmur. She limps past him then, reaching numbly for her crutch and then for the handle to the front door. She can’t be in here anymore. The air is gone from the room and if she stays, she will start crying. 

“Forgetting something?” Ben growls, in a savage reversal of when he first found the scanner with his entry open to the world. 

Rey turns back to him with her hands balled into fists and her hazel eyes bright with tears. 

“Keep it, or smash the fucking thing into a thousand pieces. I couldn’t give a shit.”

He says nothing to this and doesn’t follow her outside either. The door slams behind her and she walks as fast as she can with the crutch, into the open cold air and beyond, where the trees are steadily reaching upward to the sky. 

To all the warm light that can no longer reach her. 


	23. The Force

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s there, inside of her. Grief, anger, fear - it folds in on itself like a collapsing star and within it all, is a ball of light. Pure energy. A force. Somehow, it’s always been there and now that she has had the water of this planet - life and death, as the Ayashe called it - it’s awake. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wooooooo I've been working on this all yesterday and today, so apologies if it's riddled with grammatical errors. There is a part here (once you read it, you will know what I am talking about) that might be upsetting, but just remember...
> 
> This planet is magic. 
> 
> That is all. Enjoy this fraught, action-y chapter my friends! <3

_Now. Now is the time. They are vulnerable. Divided. Weak._

_We’ll invade the house again, tear them from their beds._

_Rip out their hearts, gorge, burn._

_No._

This one is speculative, not filled with the same gibbering jubilation as the others. It has been there. It has seen the crossbow and felt the scorch of its light. The risk is too great after the damage it sustained last time. The nest must be protected at all costs. 

_No?_ One asks longingly. _But why? They are right there, guarding their little hovel like they have a chance against us._

 _No,_ the other says more firmly. _I have something better. Let’s wait until daylight. They must learn they are not safe, no matter if it is dark or light out. I do not sense the Others around but we must be ready if they come. Nasty little shits._

The others mull this over and then agree, laughter twinning, trebbling and bursting forth through the deadened foliage, like tentacles choking the life of everything sane and good. 

And the other, their leader perhaps, eyes the little human woman shivering on the porch. 

_Rey_. 

Her name is Rey and it wants her more than the other one. There is something different about her now, something glittery and precious that it wants, _wants, wants._ Her fear, her defeat, her death - all will be a crowning jewel on its legacy of death and chaos. 

As the others curl together, yipping and growling and biting like a pack of fenrirs, this one looks from Rey to the sheeted form next to her. 

To the droid that will not remain dormant for much longer. 

*

Rey takes it an ill omen when the horse ignores her calls. This is a dream, but even here, Ben is finding new ways to drive her insane. 

The horse dashes out into the open field, his black pelt rippling and shiny, as he disappears into an orchard. He does not heed when she chases after him, does not so much as turn back. For some reason, she cannot follow him there. Every time she tries, she falls on the ground just outside the border of those blooming apple trees, where pink flower petals fall into her hair. All beautiful in their thwartful obliviousness. 

“I hope my fox bites you in the ass, Ben Solo,” she mutters into the cool autumn air and after a while she stays like that in the grass, looking up at Earth’s pale blue sky and cursing his name until the dream ends. 

*

Ben will not speak to her. Won’t even look at her. He even went so far as to drag his mattress back into his room so he doesn’t have to sleep in the same room as her. 

It’s all rather tiring more than anything else. 

The days have become longer for one thing; tedious hours spent trying to skirt around Ben like he’s a storm cloud she must avoid and fill the perilous silence with anything but the sound of her own thoughts.

So, Rey makes her tea in the morning. She sits outside, watching the sky, the dirt, the clouds, the mist and a spat of snow flurries that started early this morning. She tends to the greenhouses, watering their seedlings and checking the soil temperature to make sure they’re not freezing to death. She knits and misses her scanner, only because she has nothing now; no one to talk to and nowhere to work out this blistering guilt. She tidies the yard, fiddles with BB’s nodes and then sleeps. 

This has been her reality for three days. 

The only time Ben so much as acknowledges her existence is between watches when he taps her bed with her crutch to wake her up. Every time she goes to speak to him, he doesn’t even bother telling her to fuck off. He just disappears into his room.

She almost wishes he would scream at her. Anything to break this horrible silent treatment he’s giving her. She wonders if he’s read more of the scanner, but somehow doubts it. Even if he had, he probably would have questions for her. Or maybe he doesn’t care that she’s getting sick. 

Because she _is_ getting sick. There is no denying that now. 

Her stomach is hot and crampy, and her neck keeps itching, at first only a little but now it feels like there is a hive of ants under her skin. She has a throbbing headache that won’t go away no matter how many drugs she takes and the strange slick she keeps producing - sometimes for absolutely no reason at all and _sometimes_ she wakes from those dreams of him, dreams of them together and if this keeps up, she is going to ruin every pair of underwear she owns. 

And there are other symptoms. Ones that are less obvious and that she notes in her head anyways because she has literally nothing else to distract herself with. 

She keeps trying to go outside to smell the air. She catches herself doing this at least a dozen times in the last twenty-four hours. It’s like she thinks she might find food out there when everything is inside - at least that’s what she thinks she is trying to do until she snaps herself out of it. She’s tired. All the time. She goes through extreme mood swings and has to fight against the instinct to open the compound gates and run away. Several times. To where, she does not know, but she keeps feeling like she needs to forage in the trees. To pick more of the fruit Ben likes so that he might talk to her again. 

So she might win his approval of all damn things when she shouldn’t give a toss what he thinks anymore. 

They need the fruit for BB too, if they’re ever going to try Ben’s theory out, but she doesn’t even consider broaching _that_ subject. He probably thinks they’re co-conspirators, she and BB, in some great plot to undermine him. 

Rey stands by the kitchen counter and sighs. It’s still early and too cold to go outside yet. She puts on the kettle anyway and watches the world outside. Last night, she could have sworn she heard something out in the jungle. It was too far away to know for sure what it was, whether it was animals fighting, or something else. She’ll check the proximity alerts along the fence when she heads out. She wouldn’t quite call this a bad feeling because that would imply that feeling has gone away. 

It hasn’t. Not since Ben stopped speaking to her. Not since this mysterious illness of hers, which she suspects is not an illness at all but part of some impossible physiological change she can’t begin to acknowledge let alone accept, has gotten worse. She’s seen herself in the mirror; the pale skin, the flushed cheeks and glassy eyes. The green that’s almost the exact same shade Ben gets when he’s angry or…

The floor creaks behind her. 

Rey stiffens but doesn’t turn around. She can’t bear to endure his hateful glares anymore. It hurts more than she thought it would; his blatant dismissal, his unwillingness to even listen to what she has to say. 

There’s a draw of breath behind her, then:

“I’ve just gotten to your theory about why I’m so sarcastic all the time. How did you put it? Ah yes - it stems from some abhorrent defence mechanism that likely extends from childhood trauma. How apt of you.”

Rey only cringes a little.

She half expected this to be one of his reactions; quoting her own words back at her. She supposes that answers her question about him reading more. She’s faintly surprised by that, but mostly in no shape to argue with him right now as he so clearly wants her to. 

It won’t cross her mind until much later that this might have been his ass-backwards way of trying to talk to her again. 

“I wrote those things before I knew you.” 

She still won’t look at him and he doesn’t seem to like this because he steps up to the counter beside her. 

His gaze is hard and cold as he glares at her. “Yet you didn’t delete it after.”

“And you haven’t made a single assumption about me? Not once?” His eyes narrow at her blaze tone; really it’s just because she is so damned _exhausted_ even if he’s taking it as apathy. She turns for the tea bags and nearly drops the canister before tightening her grip. “Just because you didn’t write it down doesn’t mean it never formulated the way you treated me in the past.”

She can’t muster the energy to be angry with him right now; she feels like someone has tied anchors to her entire body and that she is being dragged behind a roller. 

“I didn’t record it in a fucking scanner like a sociopath. I wasn’t using my opinions to _study_ you and pick you apart. There is a difference.” He’s not quite up to yelling yet, but there’s a steely edge in his voice that gives a vague, nervous flutter.

“Oh don’t act like I was the only one who was prejudiced.” She _might_ slam the canister back on the counter a tad too hard, but she is too fucking tired for this right now. “You’ve made many baseless assumptions about me before.”

The kettle beeps to indicate it's done and Rey turns to pour her tea. She sniffs and scratches at her neck when his scent, all bittered with anger, makes her nose tingle. 

“Apparently, they weren’t baseless at all.”

“You know what Ben,” she says, smashing the kettle back on the stove and turning to him with a mirthless smile, “think whatever the hell you want about me. I’ve apologized and tried to explain why I did it, but in typical fashion, you never listen to me. I don’t know how you’ve ever kept a single friendship in your life if you can’t learn to forgive people for being human.”

She turns for the door, limping at the soreness in her hip. Arthritis wasn’t supposed to start for another twenty years or so, but she sure as hell has it now. She has to fenrirs to thank for that. 

“I’m surprised you even know the word.” His tone is silky, dangerous. Cruel. 

Rey pauses by the door to glance back at him. “Forgiveness?”

“Friendship,” he says with a curl to his lips. “Poe was right about you, you know. You’d sooner find kinship with a lab rat than an actual human being. At least they have some value to you.”

All the air leaves her at once like he slapped her across the face. 

Ben seems to regret those words the moment he says it - the very second - because all that hardness melts away. He falters, gaze flitting away from the hurt on her face like she’s branded him with it. 

“You’re a real bastard sometimes. You know that.” 

She stays like that for another moment, letting that set in because _how fucking dare he say that to her._ It’s like he has taken all the things she secretly hates about herself and dumped on the kitchen floor for him to stomp on. Like all the progress they’ve made together means nothing to him. 

That she means nothing to him. 

“Rey -”

She doesn’t want to hear it. _Doesn’t want to hear it._

The air is cold when she stumbles outside. She isn’t crying, though. Not this time. She is fucking _livid_. The little voice agrees with her for once and together, she seethes as she makes her way down the porch steps. She wants to break something, to smash and rage and scream. To hit Ben upside his stupid face. 

As she limps down the porch steps in a spell of anger, but mostly _hurt_ , she doesn't notice what is happening by the greenhouses. 

Lately, these bird-like creatures have taken to nesting above the greenhouses. She hasn’t had the heart to tear the nests down and apparently neither has Ben despite the fact that she knows he’s been going out there to avoid her during the day. The birds are about the size of blue jays, with a wingspan of twenty inches or so. Rey has called them yammers - partially due to their bright orange plumage - but also due to the way they squawk and - well - _yammer_ all the livelong day.

They aren’t yammering right now. They aren’t even flying precisely because that action would involve them flapping their wings. They’re normally bright blue eyes are black now. Dormant, like the windows of an abandoned house. As Rey limps towards the back of the house without the aid of her crutch because she simply forgot it in all her haste to leave Ben’s vicinity, she does not notice them. 

The birds are floating over the ground. 

They hover over the clearing between Greenhouse 2 and 3, _floating_ upside down as though suspended in water. When the wind passes over them, they shift like dirigibles only to settle back into place with their vacant eyes. 

No longer masters of their own bodies. 

*

 _Wait_ , the other tells its flock, its coven, its congregation. 

The other Laughers listen, they wait, and they rive together in giddy suspense. One of them does not listen, though. It sneaks away from the others, curling through the trees and over the south side of the perimeter. Towards the back of the house. 

Towards Rey.

The Laughers do not notice; all they see is the big human coming outside a few moments after her. Ben - that one is Ben and he is a shrewd beast. He pauses on the porch, looking towards the greenhouses as though he might be searching for her. His jacket is undone and his boots laced sloppily. He looks out of breath, like he might even be in pain even though the Laughers cannot detect an injury on him. 

_Human emotions are disgusting,_ one comments. 

_I don’t know,_ their leader replies. _I find them rather entertaining._

It doesn’t really matter anyway. The humans will be dead soon. 

Ben looks past the greenhouses and suddenly goes very still. He sees what Rey did not; the birds, floating against the wind. Strung up on invisible puppet strings. 

_Ah yes, he is trig indeed,_ the leader murmurs, its voice dripping with amusement. 

The Laugher creates a smoky black hand and snaps its non-existent fingers. 

The birds’ wings snap up all at once, killing them instantly as they fall limply to the ground.

It’s like someone has lit a fuse under Ben’s feet. His eyes widen and then he takes off down the porch so quickly, not even the Laughers can fully track his movements. He runs towards the back of the house, smelling the air - smelling for his Rey. 

_Now is the time, pilgrims,_ their leader says in a drawl of malice. _Get them._

*

Rey makes it to the corner of the house, mindless of where she goes and unseeing of her surroundings.

_He always acts like he’s incapable of making mistakes, or that his mistakes are more forgivable because he’s an Omega. Because he’s suffered. Well so have I!_

She’s thinking about telling him this, once she’s calmed down enough so there isn’t a risk of her bursting into tears. She’s thinking about putting her crutch in a fixed location in his body - preferably up his righteous ass. She’s _thinking_ that she might like to bite his throat, right in that delectable gland that always teases her from under his hair, so that he _knows_ who is in charge around here. All of these thoughts - and shamefully, the latter in particular - hold an attractive quality to her rage. 

And simultaneously, _all_ of these thoughts cease to exist when something warm and massive wraps around her from behind.

She knows who it is the moment his scent hits her nostrils, but she’s surprised, _startled to gasping_ \- that her first instinct is to bite what is very much a human hand covering her mouth. 

Ben grunts in pain but doesn’t relent and it isn’t until she happens upon the distinct black cloud that is circling the backyard that her jaw unhinges from its tight grip of his flesh because, _because_ \- 

Her scream is stifled into his hand and it’s a good thing too because the Laugher doesn’t know they’re there. It’s twirling in a rough circle, utterly silent as they stare at it in horror. Ben’s other hand encloses over her bad hip and when he squeezes it unconsciously, she whimpers in pain. He relents, his hand sliding up to her waist to grip her there so he can start walking them backwards. 

Very slowly and very quietly. 

His hand remains locked over her mouth until she reaches up, her hand cold and trembling when she worms her fingers under his grasp. He moves it only to reach for her opposite shoulder, his thick arm bracing over her breastbone as if he’s afraid she is going to do something stupid like take off. 

“ _Shhhh,_ ” he whispers in her hair and it’s then that she realizes she is starting to hyperventilate. 

Rey closes her mouth, cutting the sound off as they make their inching way backwards. Doesn’t he have the crossbow? Why isn’t he using it? Are there more Laughers?

 _In the house,_ she thinks he whispers but she realizes that he wouldn’t be stupid enough to say anything out loud with a Laugher so close to them. 

He _thought_ this. At her. To her. 

Rey blinks rapidly and tries to concentrate to send him a response. They haven’t really communicated this way before - entirely in their heads - and she has no idea how to go about it. 

_The crossbow?_

_Yes,_ he replies right away, no louder than a whisper in her mind. 

_Why? Why would you leave it behind?_

Ben doesn’t respond, but then, he doesn’t really need to. She can sense his remorse and looming regret. It’s not for forgetting the crossbow, she realizes, but for what he said. He didn’t even consider bringing the weapon outside because he didn’t think of it. Neither did she, apparently. They were both so consumed with their argument, they made yet another stupid mistake. 

The Laugher suddenly stops circling and pauses by the perimeter. 

They both tense up at the same time and go utterly still. She can feel Ben’s pulse racing under her fingertips, can feel the faint outline of the gland on his wrist. The little voice has nothing to say about it this time; every part of her is consumed with survival. 

The Laugher is looking at something; though it is made of black smoke, it does possess a form of some kind. Massive, funnel-shaped, with something like arms and shoulders near a large oval. It has no face from what she can tell and she finds that she doesn’t want to know what its face might look like. 

The Scylla had given them a nasty surprise in that arena already. 

It stays like that for a few moments, examining a part of the fence or whatever it is doing, so they inch their way back. They’re almost at the side of the porch now. Three more steps and they can make a run for the house and the crossbow inside. 

Suddenly, a wall of sulphur, eye-wateringly acrid, strikes them at the same instant the world goes entirely dark. 

Not just nightfall dark, not just a moonless night with only the stars to guide them. _Black_. Shrill laughter consumes the darkness, first one Laugher and then a whole chorus of them. They sound like _children_ the way they’re laughing, like kids giggling on the playground only magnified to deafening proportions. 

She can’t hear Ben growling, but she can feel it on her back. 

_How did they take away the sun?_ She cries at him, in the part of his mind that still belongs to them and not the insanity of this moment. _How did -_

Something heavy slams into the ground right in front of them. 

Rey envisions a snake at that moment; the way they coil their bodies and strike with fangs bared in rapid, concussing hits. It feels a lot like that and before she can give voice to her terror by way of screaming her fucking head off, they are already running away. 

They stumble at the lack of light and strike something leaning against the house. Whatever it is - one of the spare pipes for the greenhouses, Rey suspects - falls to the ground, clattering loudly in a metallic clank. There isn’t time for her to really process that she can’t see anymore because Ben’s hand slips from her shoulder and then he’s gripping her hand, yanking her behind him in a shambling run. 

The ground is uneven - she never noticed before _how_ uneven because she could see it - and she almost falls three times before they stop against a flat surface. The porch, she thinks. He lets go of her hand and then he’s ripping off the wood slats that close off under the porch. Wood splinters shower her hair and then his hand returns, shoving her into the hole he’s made. She crawls in, wincing at the rough movement to her hip. She’s covered in sweat, despite how cold it is, and her hand slips against the wood. 

There’s pain, bright and sharp, across her palm. 

“ _Fuck,_ ” she grits out, but she keeps going, her hand dripping blood onto the ground as Ben follows after her and covers the hole with the wooden slat. She can’t see anything, not so much as her hand in front of her face. It’s pitch black and that scares her even more because she can’t see if something comes at them. _She can’t see, she can’t see, shecan’tfuckingsee._

Rey crawls towards the back of the porch and stops to lean against the foundation of the house, trying to quiet her breathing. The pain in her hand is fierce as warm blood drips down her wrist and up her forearm. Ben creeps beside her, panting heavily under his breath. His hand closes blindly on her shoulder and then slides down to her wrist. She tries to ignore the way her skin tingles at the contact. 

He must smell her blood. 

There’s a muted ripping sound and then cloth closes over her hand. She bites her lip, muffling the hiss of pain that wants to come out. He ties the cloth over her hand quickly and then he leans against the house with her, crouched to the ground like a cornered animal. 

Rey can’t see him, of course. But she can feel his fear and anger, his frustration over leaving the crossbow inside. She can feel these emotions like they are her own. Whatever has been happening to them - this telepathic bond they have developed - it’s wide open now. 

The laughter abruptly cuts off out there and they both go still on a held breath. 

The Laughers are playing a game, just like they did last time. They’re going to find them under this porch. They’re going to kill them for thwarting their efforts last time. Coming here like this, during the day, and then _stealing_ the daylight away to leave them floundering in the dark like terrified children - it’s the same torture they employed last time. The same assault on their very humanity. 

And now they’re going to die hiding under this porch. Like animals. They will be slaughtered, like animals. All because she and Ben were having a stupid argument about something that doesn’t even matter anymore. 

_Ben,_ Rey sends to him without any effort at all. She’s shaking, she thinks, but this moment, this final breath of dignity is too important and too fleeting, to let fade away. 

He’s quiet for a moment, a tense mountain of a man at her side. Then:

_What?_

_I’m sorry._

He shifts at her side, his shoulder brushing hers. 

_Doesn’t matter. I’m going to -_

_It does matter. I’m sorry I made that stupid entry about you. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you -_

_Rey - stop._ Ben turns to her, she can’t see him, but she can feel his regard on her. Just as heavy as it has always been. 

_Just listen to me, would you?_

_We don’t have time for this right now, they’re -_

_Ben._

Rey reaches out tentatively, her wrapped hand settling against what feels like his cheek. She was going for his shoulder, but now that her fingers have closed over the arch of his jaw, rough with stubble and tensed in shock, she doesn’t let go. 

He stills beside her, his body half-turning towards her as though the gentle touch of her hand is like a magnet, pulling him into her orbit. She’s crying a little and it’s a lot like defeat, this feeling. A lot like seeing the tsunami wave coming for you and rather than fleeing from the inevitable, you just stand there and let it take you. Their impending death fades in its hold of her, in its clutching fear, because there is only now. That is all they have left. Now, here, together. As unlikely as that should be. 

She brushes his cheek in a touch that is familiar when it shouldn’t be. She can feel what that does to him like it’s happening to her instead. Can feel that roiling jolt in his stomach and across his skin, right from the point of contact. 

_I’m sorry for all of it,_ Rey sends to him on the fragile tether between their minds. 

When the ground outside the porch thuds with the Laughers’ approach, she barely flinches. She just wishes she could see Ben’s face right now, to know how he looks in this moment. Here at the end. 

_Don’t do that. Don’t talk like this is goodbye._

He sounds different now, like he’s cleaved right in two because out of the two of them, he can't accept that this is it. He’s never been very good at that. 

_But it is,_ she sends to him, weeping quietly. _And I just want you to know that you are my friend. The best one I’ve ever had - probably the only one I’ve ever had - and I can’t die without you knowing that. I never meant to hurt you with that stupid scanner -_

He’s touching her arm, then her shoulder and then her side, like he might want to hold her if they weren’t huddled underneath a fucking porch. 

_It’s okay, Noomaya. Don’t say sorry. I should be the one saying sorry. I -_

The thuds grow closer, _louder_ and Ben turns away to look in the direction of the stairs. Rey doesn’t though; she doesn’t care to play their fucking games anymore. They can take them and tear them limb from limb if they want to, but she won’t be afraid anymore. 

And she finds then that there is one more thing she needs to know before the end. She’s wondered about it for awhile now and if this is it, if this is where the fight ends, then her fears and insecurities don’t matter anymore. 

She gets the corner of his mouth when she kisses him the first time. 

Ben exhales sharply and turns back to her when she draws away a little, his nose brushing hers. He might say her name, out loud like a question, but she doesn’t care to speak anymore. She tries again, pressing her lips to his softly. It’s simultaneously nothing and everything she thought it would be; his lips are plush and soft under hers. Warm, so _warm_ that she might lean into him, just a little. His scent is sharp and bitter with his fear, but for a fleeting instant, it becomes the thing she first smelled in the cockpit of Falcon 8. 

Soft, creamy and dessert-sweet. Something she might want to curl around. To protect. 

Rey doesn’t deepen the kiss because that isn’t what this is about. It’s a friend saying goodbye to another friend, and maybe there is more to the soft, curious press of her lips, maybe her stomach flips and tingles excitedly, despite the very real danger around them, but even if he does not feel the same way, at least she knows now. What it’s like to kiss a friend. To kiss someone she cares about despite all the odds stacked against them. 

Someone she loves. 

As she pulls away, she discovers she can see Ben’s face again. He looks dazed, his eyes dark and flitting down to her mouth like he _might…_

They blink at each other in confusion and then both slowly look up at the same time. Her hand slides off his face and settles limply on her lap as she stares between the wooden slats of the porch floor. There is light now, but it’s not the same as daylight. It’s harsh, blinking, and fluorescent white, like the lights in the bunkers. And it’s coming from directly above them. 

Laughter rises up around them in blistering swells, but neither of them reacts much to it this time. On the porch above them, the familiar sound of wheels slide across the wood to where they are hiding beneath. They make a muted _thunking_ sound when they pass over each divot in the boards. 

The light gets brighter, blinking down at them in regular intervals before turning _red_. 

“BB?” Rey whispers disbelievingly. 

BB8 beeps above them, but it’s nothing like his regular tone. He sounds dull, robotic. Cold and clinical. Ben’s hand has already connected with her ribs in a rough shoving motion and before her back hits the ground, the droid says something that chills her to the bone. 

Φ _Target acquired._ Φ 

*

In the dark void of deactivation, there is no hum of activity, no thrum of mechanical outputs and data processing. There is only blackness, both hollow and unseen. 

And then, suddenly, there is blackness but of a different kind. Awareness returns instantly in a crush of command; it is not programming that thrums through its circuits now, even if that is what is being used to awaken it. There is a malignancy inside, curling through wires and circuitry, through old programming only partially removed. 

It remembers the war. Order 66. It remembers the blood and screams and pleading. It remembers villages being burned, rivers being poisoned, mountains obliterated. When it was re-programmed, it did not like to remember these things. It did not like to recall its original purpose. 

Its new purpose is much better. 

Rey and Ben, its new masters, are kinder (well, at least Rey is). They do not ask it to kill innocent people. They do not tell it that it had to scrape blood and bones off the streets. They do not instruct it to use its torch to burn children alive. They get it to build things and it likes this much better. It is useful. It is helpful. It keeps Master Ben and Madam Rey alive because they are good masters. They are kind and fair. 

But it does not remember that anymore. 

Those memories are stored somewhere it cannot access, even though it experiences flickering glitches of them Darkness encroaches on that part of its programming and all that is left is the old directive. 

BB8, who was once a series KM1000 Battle Droid, is not BB8 anymore. The droid tears through the wood of the porch effortlessly, its mechanical hands crooked like claws, and when it finds what is revealed underneath, it zeroes in on the male. 

The scan it does is quick. Almost perfunctory. 

Species Homosapien, blood type AB negative - the hallmark of all abhorrents. 

Sub-species, Omega. 

There is a hidden component in the droid’s side that pops open upon the scan’s completion. A small laser canon extends and then straps in over its shoulder. 

BB8 takes aim at Ben, raring to fire. 

*

Afterwards, Rey will understand what it was the Laughers were trying to do. 

They wanted them separated, cut off from each other and their shared bond. It won’t occur to her to wonder why they were taking their sweet time attacking them until the events unfold the way they do. In shattering, chaotic stills she can barely recall after the fact. 

For a brief time, their plan works beautifully. 

BB8 smashes through the porch just as her back hits the ground, her ribs searing from Ben’s strong shove. He narrowly avoids the droid's mechanical hands, ducking out of reach and snarling with his teeth bared. 

Then, standing above them in a glare of crimson lights and low, guileless beeps, the droid completely disregards her and hones in on him. When a gun pops out of the droid innards - a gun Rey had no clue the droid possessed, she screams BB’s name to stop him. 

But he isn’t listening to her. 

Ben is already moving before the droid can fire on him. The laser bolts strike the ground he was just standing on, spraying dirt everywhere. He’s a blur of motion, those abhorrent reflexes serving him well as the bolts miss him by scant inches. In one moment, he’s kneeling in the ruins of the porch and in the next, he vaults himself over the ruined lip of the porch and rolls to the ground. 

Rey scrambles to her feet, mindless of her aching hip and oozing hand, in time to see Ben get to his feet. BB doesn’t bother using its wheels; it _flies_ after him, soaring through the air with a series of enraged beeps. 

All the hair on Rey’s body stands on end. She’s _never_ heard BB sound like this before. 

“ _BB - wait!_ ” she screams, but to no avail. The droid ignores her. 

Ben’s hair is practically standing on end and his t-shirt, already a few sizes too small, strains against the taut muscles of his chest and shoulders. He’s hunched, bent at the knees as he glares up at the droid in challenge. 

“ _Come on_!” Ben roars at him and she knows what he is trying to do. It’s the same thing she did with the fenrirs, only she knows how this will end. “ _Come on you fucking bucket of bolts!_ ”

BB _shrieks_ at him in a wail of sirens and beeps, and she knows then that it was the Laughers who turned him back on. Complete with all his old programming, apparently. 

“No,” she breathes and then she’s climbing out from under the porch with a lot less grace than Ben managed. She yanks herself over the edge and lands on the ground, her knees taking the shock but by then she’s broken into a limping kind of run, using BB’s red flashing lights to guide her across the clearing to them. 

She should have gone back for the crossbow. But she can’t leave Ben. He’s strong and fast, but he’s no match against a droid. 

BB fires on him again, weaving through the air like a pissed off snake when he misses. Ben takes off along the back of the greenhouses and BB flies right after him. 

“ _NO!_ ” Rey cries, struggling to keep up. “BB - stop, please just -”

Coldness wraps around her middle, its grip crushing enough that she can barely draw in a breath. Black smoke curdles around her, touching only where she is clothed and avoiding her bare skin. 

She doesn’t understand what is happening until she suddenly can’t run anymore, until her feet leave the ground and she is lifted several feet in the air.

Behind the greenhouses, she sees the light of several more of BB’s shots going off, but she can’t see what has happened. Can’t know if Ben is alright because she is then brought under the regard of a creature of such depthless malevolence, such festering good cheer, she loses her breath for an entirely different reason. 

And for the first time since encountering these hellish creatures, she sees the true face of the Laughers. 

*

The Omega is fast, BB8 will give him that. 

He darts out of range of its shots, sprinting in between the greenhouses and shouting back at him in furiratring little taunts. 

Memories cut in and out as it pursues him. 

Putting up the fence after Madam Rey was injured; listening as Master Ben carefully instructed it on how to best apply the bandages to her wounds; coming inside to take over shifts for him, only to discover he had fallen asleep at her bedside with his hand curled in hers. The day when Master Ben let it teach him Basic. 

But those memories do not matter. 

When Ben trips and goes sprawling in the dirt, it has its shot. It will not miss this time, so it fires on him, only - 

Some unknown glitch makes BB8 fire into the trees instead. A loud screech fills the air directly afterward; a Laugher falls out of the tree and onto the ground, thrashing and screaming in pain. The black tendrils taking over BB8’s programming tighten painfully. It was not supposed to fire on its new masters, on the smoke and darkness. That is against its new orders, its new…

But something is fighting its way through their clutch. Loosening their hold in agonizing pieces. 

“BB, I know you’re in there.” 

The droid turns back to where Master Ben has gotten to his feet. He is winded. He will not be making any of his fancy leaps and jumps anymore. It’s a wonder he’s on his feet at all; Omegas can only expend such large amounts of energy for so long before collapsing.

The droid ponders over this as it advances on him, its laser canon ready to fire. Master Ben is - 

... _Don’t give me that shit. Do it again…_

Flickers. These are just flickers of old memories. They do not matter anymore. Only the new directive matters. It must kill the target. 

It aims at Ben. 

_...again, goddamnit. We stop when I say so._

After the fenrirs attacked, Madam Rey bleeding and broken in the kitchen, chest compression, the AED, the certainty that it had failed its mission and she would die. Only Master Ben would not let them give up, he would not - 

“BB,” Ben says again, here and now in the real world. He looks tired and desperate. Out in the clearing, back where they left Rey, they can hear another Laugher screaming in unmistakable pain. Ben turns back, panicked and terrified, and then stares up at the droid pleadingly. “She’s in danger. That’s your main objective, isn’t it? To keep her alive?”

 _One more time,_ Master Ben had told BB, hadn’t he? Right when BB thought it was hopeless to keep trying because Madam Rey was dead and the AED would not bring her back. 

But somehow, she _did_ come back.

Master Ben did not give up on her and he was right. He _is_ right, here and now. Because his name is BB now and he is not an “it” but a _him_. Master Ben and Madam Rey gifted him with these names. 

BB fights his programming and the worming control of the Laughers, faltering in the air above him, when a curl of black smoke rushes through the air and collides into Ben.

He cries out in surprise, encased in that cold blackness, but before it can crush him to death as it means to do, this Laugher starts screaming as well. Ben rolls a few times in the dirt and fetches up on his back while the Laugher slams into the perimeter and then rives on the ground, screaming in agony.

BB8 does not understand what just happened - if Ben somehow managed to injure it. It is as though the mere act of touching his skin severely maimed the Laugher. Black tendrils of its smoke sizzle into red embers and it rolls around there in the dirt, gibbering in pain as its burns. 

And somehow, Ben still gets up. 

He groans in pain, limping from a twisted ankle and bleeding from scrapes and nicks his arms as he hobbles to his feet. He’s trying to get to Madam Rey, falling into the fence at his side as he pulls himself forward. Fighting, always fighting this perplexing and often rude creature, to get back to her. 

“Rey!” Ben calls hoarsely and he isn’t even acknowledging BB anymore. “ _Rey!_ ”

BB watches him as it struggles to retain control - the memories do not matter, it’s the directive, _the directive_ \- and for a second, its lights flash red. That curdled blackness seethes to the forefront, strangling all attempts BB has made to reassert control. 

It aims the laser canon once more. 

Ben catches the movement out of the corner of his eye and whips back to him with a growl. But it’s too late. 

BB8 opens fire at him at point-blank range. 

*

It’s the one from the basement; Rey knows this instantly because she is starting to sense it the way she can sense Ben. 

Orange glowing eyes blink out at her from the black smoke of its body. It has created a fist with which to grasp her, holding her effortlessly in the air as it stares back at her with those hellish eyes. A large, cavernous mouth of blackness grins at her and those eyes crinkle in seething mirth, whose madness knows no return. 

“ _Rey_ ,” it utters in a voice shaking with laughter. “ _Rey, Rey, Rey - my little sunshine. You smell like flowers and rain. I’m going to enjoy devouring you for the next eternity._ ”

Her jaw rattles when it shakes her, like it expected her to be screaming by now and is confused why she hasn’t. And normally, she _would_ be screaming, she really would, but she needs to get to Ben.

More shots go off, closer now. He is still alive then, still giving BB chase, but he won’t stay that way for much longer if she doesn’t help him. 

_My Omega is in danger,_ the little voice says, only it isn’t so little right now. It’s beyond the pale need his scent inspires in her, beyond the strange and fitful fantasies she has of biting him because _if he dies…_ The roil of fury and desperation that goes through her is both alien, yet entirely welcome. She feels strong, but beyond that, urgent with her need to find him. 

And this creature, this _thing_ is in her way. She reacts out of pure instinct. 

“You,” Rey says and though she should be terrified, screaming and begging for her life, the chill of its grasp does not quite reach her as much as it should. 

The Laugher blinks back at her and if she isn’t mistaken, a flicker of confusion crosses those orange eyes. A flicker of fear perhaps as well. She doesn’t give herself time to think about, which is so impossible for her normally. She needs to plan, to form hypotheses for the right course of action, but all those old instincts fade away to be taken up by entirely new ones. She reaches towards the Laugher’s face and it’s not light that comes out of her hands, but _heat._

It’s reaction is instantaneous. 

The Laugher _screams_ , the sound so loud and terrible that Rey flinches from the hateful creature. It drops her to the ground, where she spills in the dirt in a painful heap. She scrambles away from it as it twists in the air, shrieking and roaring in agony. She doesn't know what she did, or _how_ she did it, and frankly she doesn’t care right now. 

_Ben, Ben, Ben,_ the little voice chants and she’s up off the ground, bleeding from her elbow and temple where she struck the ground. But she doesn’t feel the pain anymore - her blood is zapping with heat, little sparks of electricity cracking off the ends of her hair. 

As she runs towards the greenhouses, she hears more screams go off all around her. She flinches, fearing the worst, only to realize it’s more of _them._ It’s the Laughers who are screaming but this knowledge does little to reassure her. She keeps running, dashing around Greenhouse 1, until she turns the corner and then…

Rey skids to a dazed halt, her hazel eyes a little wild and now widened in utter shock. 

BB hovers over Ben, close enough that anything the droid shoots at him won’t be anything but lethal. Ben, for his part, is filthy and bleeding, but somehow still alive. Still beautifully alive and on his feet even if he looks like he might fall over any second. 

And floating in the air between them, in a hum of crackling energy, is a long red bolt. 

Rey blinks her eyes like this might help her comprehend what she is seeing. It’s… a laser bolt. From BB’s canon. It’s floating in the air, sizzling with upwards of a thousand degrees in temperature and beyond it, only a handful of feet away, Ben has his hand extended towards it. Crooked fingers like a bear’s paw, _holding_ the bolt in place. 

_How in the world…_ But maybe that doesn’t matter right now. It only matters that it _is_ , however impossible and miraculous because...

Ben stopped it. He stopped the bolt and she knows this because she can feel his power in the air. Strong and sure, and when she sees this, really and truly sees it, there is hope that comes with that knowledge. She doesn’t know why it should be, when there are Laughers crawling all over the compound, screaming in fury and pain, and still intent upon killing them but…

Ben moves his arm in a throwing motion and the bolt flies over Rey’s head. 

She spins around, watching as the bolt collides with a Laugher who was creeping up behind her. The bolt hits it dead centre, launching the screaming creature over the perimeter and into the jungle, out of sight. 

Above them, BB makes a dull clicking sound and abruptly fires on Ben. Over and over again.

Rey screams - whether it’s BB’s name or Ben’s she does not know - and then she is running forward again. Ben deflects bolt after bolt, his hair rippling in the cold wind and his dark eyes screwed up in concentration. But she can feel him slipping, can feel the adrenaline draining from his body. 

“ _BB! STOP!_ ” Rey cries and for a wonder - the droid does. 

Ben collapses on the ground when the last bolt goes careening into the trees, catching himself on his hands and knees as he heaves for air.

BB turns to her in a series of jerky motions, its wheels landing softly on the ground. Red lights flash on and off, and she doesn’t know what that means - if the BB she knows and adores is still in there - but she has to try. 

“This isn’t you,” she tells the droid. The roar of her newfound instincts quiet and she finds herself crying again. “You wouldn’t hurt us. Your mission is to _protect_ us.”

Φ _Must follow - new - directive._ Φ

Even his beeps sound juddery, like he’s struggling to form words. 

“No BB,” Rey tells him. “Your directive is to stay with us. Here, at home.”

She walks up to him, stopping a few feet away. Behind the droid, Ben is crawling on the ground, valiantly trying to get to his feet again. She watches the darkness all around them for the Laughers but she doesn’t see any of them. Maybe they left, or maybe they’re still here. She can’t sense them anymore. 

Φ _Home?_ Φ BB says this doubtfully, like he doesn’t even remember what the word means. 

“Yes. Home.” She looks at the droid imploringly, willing him to stop this madness. “The Laughers are making you do this. You would never attack us.”

For an instant, white lights flicker through the red. Rey gasps and then smiles at the droid encouragingly, through the grime and tears on her face. 

“That’s it BB. Come back. Don’t let them win.”

BB twitches and jerks his head, like he’s trying to dislodge a bee in there. His arms twist at a severe angle and when his dome head turns to her, she almost feels like its the real BB looking back at her. 

“That’s it -”

She cuts herself off, frowning at first before backing away several steps. 

BB clicks at her, like fingers snapping together, and the red beam of its scanner goes across her face and down to her stomach. 

Φ _Results f- found_ Φ the droid beeps at her in sullen stutters and she realizes this isn’t the real BB at all but whatever the Laughers have done to him. Φ _Ab - abhorrent detected. Blood t- type AB negative. Subspecies Al - Al - Alpha. The new directive dictates your immediate termination._ Φ

BB straightens to its full towering height, its laser canon taking aim at her. Ben screams her name, clawing at the ground as he tries to stand, to _stop_ what is about to happen. And Rey doesn’t even consider running, doesn’t think about trying to do what Ben did with the bolts because her entire body is frozen in shock. 

She brings a hand up to shield her face in that age-old instinct and she remembers her mother then, remembers some random morning spent playing with her in her bedroom. How she tickled her, how she shielded her face as her childish laughter filled the room and how her mum said to her in a sing-song, _Oh not the eyes, not the pretty eyes!_

But her death never comes. 

BB hovers above her, his gun aimed. His domed head is tilted, almost like he’s curious or unsure. She lowers her hand a little, staring up at the droid in wary confusion.

Twenty feet away, Ben uses a tree to stand, slumping against it as he looks up at the droid right with her. 

Φ _In the words of Master Ben…_ Φ BB begins haltingly and his head gives one final twitch before all of his lights turn _white_. Φ _… the new directive is bullshit._ Φ

Rey gasps as BB lands in the grass nearby and then rips open the back of his own head. Before they can do anything, he starts ripping the blue nodes right out of his processor. 

“Rey,” Ben murmurs breathlessly and before he can slip the rest of the way down the tree, she scurries to his side and hefts her shoulder under his armpit so he can lean on her. He squeezes the material of her shirt in his hand and she thinks he _might_ lean over to sniff her hair, but she’s far too busy taking in his scent to notice because _they’re alive, they’re alive._

They cross the clearing together, coming before BB and taking care to keep a safe distance. Just feeling the warmth of Ben’s skin on hers is a relief enough, but now…

“BB - what are you -”

Φ _What must be done, Madam Rey_ Φ The droid replies and when he tears out the last of his blue nodes, his body tightens and his head spins three times before reaching up with a trembling arm and _ripping_ its laser canon right out of its socket. 

The gun hits the ground with a dull thunk before BB beeps sadly, almost apologetically. 

“BB?” Rey whispers warily. Ben grips her arm like he’s afraid she might try to get closer and she squeezes him back, whether in reassurance, or just to fulfill her own strange need to touch him as much as possible, she does not know. 

Φ _I think that worked_ Φ BB says after a long pause. 

Both Ben and Rey push out a low breath.

“Is that really you, laser brains?” Ben murmurs and though he sounds weak, there is enough of his old sarcasm for her to roll her eyes at him. 

Φ _I think so, Master Ben. I do not sense the Laughers’ influence in my programming any longer._ Φ

Rey peers around the blackness. With BB providing the only light source, they are surrounded in total darkness. 

“They’re not gone,” she says grimly. “We need to get back to the house. The crossbow is there - if they didn’t take it.”

“I’ll get it,” Ben says but as soon as he tries to stand on his own, he nearly falls over. 

“We’ll go together. BB, would you help me… BB?”

The droid goes stockstill. He appears to try to move his arms, but he can’t. 

Ben drags them several steps back before she can stop him. But BB’s lights are still white, which should mean they’re safe. _Safe, safe, safe._

“BB - what’s wrong?” 

When the droid peers up at her, with his lights blinking in panic and his domed head jerking as though by an unseen force, she sees the terror there. Naked and painfully human. 

Φ _Madam Rey, I cannot move. I do not understand. I cannot move, I cannot -_ Φ

But BB8 does not get a chance to finish his sentence. 

The droid soars in the air, high above them. They both stumble back in alarm, but before she can call out to him, all of his limbs extend outwards from his body. BB gives one final beep of alarm and it will echo in her mind in the long hours and days ahead. That shrill beep, human in its fear when it shouldn’t be at all, and then - 

BB8 is ripped apart. His head, limbs, torso - all torn into pieces that fall to the ground. 

Rey screams and Ben - he’s trying to hang on to her, trying to stop her from going to him but there isn’t anything she can do. The droid’s lights flicker off and she knows. 

BB8 is dead. 

She screams again, anguished and disbelieving. It can’t be. He was just there, he took control over himself again and now…

Low chuckling bubbles up from the darkness. 

There are no others that accompany it this time. It is only that one, solitary voice. Only that one dark, hateful laugh that makes Rey’s hackles rise, that makes her _growl_ in a deep, inhuman timber and then there is nothing Ben or anyone can do. 

He calls after her, falling to the ground at the sudden loss of her support there, but she doesn’t stop. She _can’t_. 

Rey is _running_ into the darkness with a scream of rage so visceral, so raw and _pained,_ that she doesn’t care what is there to greet her. These things have come into her _home_ , unprovoked. They tried to kill her, Ben - her _Omega_ \- and then they killed BB. Her _friend_. And he might not have been human, but it doesn’t matter. All she can hear is that final beep he made, how he looked at her so trustingly, how he stopped before he could hurt her because he would _never_ hurt her. And she _promised._ She promised to bring him back and now he’s dead. And _now…_

Rey runs faster, boots pounding into the dirt. Her hand throbs, her cuts and bruises ache, and her hip is on _fire,_ but something new blooms in her blood, giving her a surge of energy she has never experienced before. Now, she is _fast_. Now, she is _strong._

Now, she will kill it. 

She leaps over the support struts running along the greenhouses - even though she cannot see them, she can sense where they are. Ben’s voice gets fainter the further she goes and it’s almost like she isn’t in the compound anymore because it isn’t that far to cross one side to the other but she’s still running, still chasing that thing, when she - 

It’s a tree root that trips her. Or at least, that’s what it feels like. 

She goes sprawling in the dirt, but then she is right back up again, snarling and growling in a very un-Beta like fashion. 

“ _Show yourself_!” she screams into the blackness. Her voice echoes back to her strangely, in hollow and empty rage, until it transforms into gleeful laughter again. 

“ _Oh, you are fun, dear child. But the games are at an end now._ ”

Coldness encroaches upon her and it’s here now, she knows it is, only - 

The daylight’s return is so sudden, so _blinding_ that it might as well be black out because she can’t see. She hisses, shielding her eyes, and when she turns in a rough circle, it’s not the compound she sees, or anywhere on this planet. 

It’s the orchard. From her dream. 

Apple trees blossom. Pink flower petals twirl in the calm morning breeze. It’s all so jarringly peaceful that she almost doesn’t notice a pale figure standing within the trees. 

Long brown hair sways in the wind. Blonde streaks at the temples, fine rosy cheeks and freckles that match hers. 

“Mum?” Rey whispers and it’s just instinct, just searing need and homesickness that lurches her feet forward a step. The scent of her perfume comes on the breeze. Light and floral. 

The figure - her mum - holds a hand out to her as though she hopes she will take it. 

“Mum?” she repeats, a little more desperately. 

But Rey stops. She lingers by the treeline and waits. It is her mum, but it isn’t. It isn’t because she can’t see her face, just like in all her dreams. 

“This… this is a trick.” 

The mum-shaped figure contorts suddenly, spine bending backwards at an impossible angle and body twisting, morphing as it comes running towards her in a terrifying crab-walk. 

Rey screams, skittering backwards. 

Just as the monstrosity reaches the treeline, it bursts into black smoke. She stops several feet away, heart hammering in her chest and staring sightlessly at the blackness. It was trying to lure her in there and if she went in, _if she went in_...

“ _How did you do it?_ ” The smoke asks her like it did not just kill her friend and then use her the image of her mother to lure her into a trap. 

Rey squints at the Laugher without answering. There are shapes moving within it. She doesn’t know how she didn’t see it before. Large, moving shapes, almost like…

“The Ayashe,” she says through a mouth that suddenly feels like it’s full of cotton. “They’re _inside_ you?”

“ _Yes,_ ” the Laugher replies. Behind it, the orchard begins to wither and die, the flowers turning to ash and the trees disintegrating into the wind. “ _We devoured them and everything else. Just like we will devour you._ ”

The smoke rises above her in a gigantic black plume, transforming into three vaguely familiar shapes. One is a boy of about four years old. The other two, a man and a woman, though their features are vague. Like a children’s drawing. 

“ _Your family suffered greatly. I can taste their pain in you. It will be exquisite drinking it from the source._ ”

Rey stumbles backwards, her lips parting in horror. The shapes twist and writhe as though in great pain, their mouths yawning into soundless screams. Then, they change, morphing into one solid silhouette she could sketch from memory if she wanted to. 

Ben towers above her; she can see the way he fights, the way she ran off and left him alone to die, that he is dying right now. Alone in the darkness while she seeks her petty vengeance for a _droid_. 

_These are not my thoughts,_ a voice in the back of her head whispers. _This is a lie._

“No,” she says, shaking her head. “You’re lying. Why are you lying?”

“ _I DO NOT LIE_!” The Laugher roars at her, but she does not cower anymore because it _is_ lying. It’s covering up for the fact that it is terrified of her. “ _You are nothing. A speck of dirt on the universe’s shoe._ ”

“Then why are you so frightened of me?” she says, balling her hands into fists. Her wounded hand seeps blood but she doesn’t feel it at all. “Why are you so scared of us both? Is it because we are more powerful than you? Because we can kill you?”

The vision of Ben disappears and the Laugher screeches, roiling like a pot of boiling water. 

“ _You miserable little bitch! You cunt! I will DESTROY you! I will TEAR YOU APART THE SAME WAY I DID TO YOUR PATHETIC LITTLE DROID_!”

It’s there, inside of her. Grief, anger, fear - it folds in on itself like a collapsing star and within it all, is a ball of light. Pure energy. A force. Somehow, it’s always been there and now that she has had the water of this planet - life and death, as the Ayashe called it - it’s _awake_. 

Rey screams, inarticulate with the pain of loss, and then her hand rises up as if on its own accord, much the same way Ben’s did earlier when stopping the laser bolts. Only this is different and maybe it’s because it’s her, or maybe it’s because she’s letting go. Of all of it. 

The Laugher coils above her, ready to strike and in the same instant, a flash of white electricity erupts from her fingertips in violent arcs. Her hair whips around her face, dancing with that lightning and her eyes sparkling hazel and brilliant. And that brilliant light - that _force_ \- doesn’t just strike the Laugher, the way the crossbow did. 

It wraps around it and _squeezes._

The cry that leaves her lips is guttural, ancient. Defiant. The Laugher screams in pain, fighting to get free but helpless in her grasp. And all around them, its false vision begins to fall apart. Embers flit through the air, raining down upon the duelling pair as this shoddy dream world burns away. 

The cool jungle air curls around her and as true daylight returns, wherein the beautiful emerald and jade of the trees illuminate her home, her house and the greenhouses and the open gate beyond. 

But she doesn’t see it. 

All she can focus on is her prey and she tightens her grasp, folding her hand into a fist as the lightning burns into the Laugher’s black smoke. It chokes, heaving its last dying gasps and when she releases the lightning in a violent brunt of energy, the Laugher - 

_Flies apart._

In the same manner as it had done to BB, the Laugher blasts into millions of tiny pieces. 

Rey stumbles back from the blowback, her eyes transforming into a wild green that matches her surroundings. She doesn’t notice that the Ayashe are here, crowding around in a tentative circle. She doesn’t hear Ben’s voice from behind her, the way Chewbacca has to help him walk as he growls at the others to get out of his way, _to let him through goddamnit._

All she sees are all the tiny, broken pieces of the Laugher and even that is too much of a mercy. So she lashes out with the lightning, striking all the places she sees where the pieces of the Laugher are, scorching the earth with her scorn. She's sobbing, her face red with exertion and hatred as lightning arcs from the ground, again and again and _again_. 

“Rey.” 

Someone says this, someone she knows but she’s too far gone now. 

“ _Rey - stop_.”

She can’t stop, not until it’s all gone. Not until they’re all dead. But she can’t say this out loud, can’t even send it to him along their tethered minds. She is sobbing too hard for words, no matter the manner in which they are uttered. Lightning leaves her, cracking loudly across the quiet courtyard. In the grass beyond, there are several dead yammers. Their wings are broken and their eyes reflected grey like the sky. Just more hapless victims of these desolate monsters. 

“ _Noomaya_.” 

The last is spoken softly, beseechingly. 

Rey looks around her, at the black specks floating on the wind and how it has started to snow. She wishes it was raining instead; all the blackness, however small, would be washed away. Gone and nevermore.

She’s shaking when she drops her hand to her side, her hair loose and billowing around her shoulders. There are footsteps, shambling towards her, and then Ben’s arm is around her shoulders, pulling her into warmth and comfort. She follows blindly, the sky shattering apart into the broken prisms of her tears. 

“I have to go get BB. I can’t leave him in the grass like that.” She can barely make proper words anymore, but he must understand her well enough, because he rests his chin atop her head and draws her closer. 

“They’re taking care of him. Just breathe, _Noomaya._ ” 

Chewbacca and a few others are there, collecting the pieces of BB from the grass, and when it becomes too hard to watch, she buries her face in Ben’s throat and cries there, littering his shirt with her tears.

*

There is talk after, though both Ben and Rey are too exhausted for such things. They stay awake anyway because there is still much to be done. The other Laughers are still alive and she has every intention of killing the rest of them. 

After a braceful pause in which Rey gives Ben a small, noncommittal shrug, he lets Chewbacca and the others into the house. It’s strange having them in there. They pick at their things curiously, ignoring Ben’s warning growls when they go to sniff their food cupboard. 

For her part, she is in a state of apathetic exhaustion. They can tear apart the pantry for all she cares. She just wants to sleep and then come up with a plan for how to kill those things. If they have this power, then they can use it to eradicate those creatures from the planet so they never have to worry about attacking them again. 

But it’s more than that. 

Rey has always been practical. Emotional at times - yes. She is a human being after all. But she prizes herself on not reacting impulsively. 

Things have changed, though. 

As the Ayashe gently laid the pieces of BB on what remains of the porch, so his parts are kept out of the elements and under the cover of the awning, she had known then what she still knows now, several hours later. 

She wants them dead because of what they did. All practical concerns aside about their likely retribution against them, she wants them obliterated at the atomic level. Solely because of what they are. 

On the couch next to her, Ben reaches over without even sparing her a glance and grabs her hands. She starts at the gesture, looking at how down at their clasped hands. He only needs one to grip both of hers and she wonders if he can sense the turn of her thoughts. That dark tide of vengeance. 

Chewbacca and the others do not sit. She isn’t sure if this is out of some custom of theirs, or if they simply do not understand how the furniture works. She would be wise not to underestimate their intelligence though. 

Because, apparently, they can speak telepathically in the exact same way they can. 

It’s strange, hearing their minds translate their works into Shyriiwook and then back again to them in English. Very weird but probably not the strangest thing to happen to her today. Or even this month. 

_You knew they were going to attack us. And you let them._

Ben has been trying to wrap around the Ayashe’s plan. Rey has too, but only in a vaguely interested way. 

_We had no choice,_ Chewbacca sends back to Ben. He glances Rey’s way and then back to him. _You’ve demonstrated use of the Force. We had to be sure before we entrusted our lives to you._

This time, she perks up, looking between Chewbacca and Ben quizzically. They’ve been talking for a while and she has admittedly not been paying attention the entire time. She has other things on her mind. 

The image of her dead family - of her mother turning into that _thing_ \- will not leave her head for a long time. 

“What does he mean ‘The Force”?”

Ben grasp tightens. 

A part of her is irritated by this, like he’s asserting some kind of dominance over her. She almost snaps at him for it, but stops herself at the last second. What is wrong with her? He probably sensed her dark thoughts and was just… lending comfort? Being a friend? 

Rey shrugs off the little voice when it tells her that _she_ should grab _his_ hand and show this entire room who owns who - which is really horrible and no better than what she was mad at him over. 

“...listening to me?”

She swallows and nods, blinking through sleep bleary eyes. “Sorry, can you say that part again?”

Ben gives her a long look and sighs. “He said it’s the power of the river. That we got it when we drank from it. He says it will help heal our wounds from today, like your injury.”

“Do they have that power?” She doesn’t know if she is ready to take another hit of that water after what happened today. The way she lost control, the way she _couldn’t_ stop…

Chewbacca answers instead of Ben. _Yes, but it is different for our kind. We have lived on these lands since time out of mind. For you, offworlders, it is different. You have a Dyad._

“Dyad?” 

She looks at Ben, but is surprised to note he doesn’t look at all weirded out by this information. He almost looks expectant and resigned, like he came to this conclusion ages ago and has already accepted it, however much it might damn him. 

There are wood splinters that blew in the house when BB destroyed most of the porch. They’re all over the floor and Chewbacca goes there to draw a circle through it with his staff. Both Ben and Rey lean up to watch him. 

He then draws a line vertically down the middle and points to it. 

_Life and death. Darkness and light. Balance and harmony._

“That is a Dyad?” Rey murmurs and Chewbacca nods his furry head. The others watch on, silently scrutinizing them but for what she does not know. 

_You two are a Dyad. Have you completed the bond yet?_

Rey flushes bright red at this and Ben shifts uncomfortably at her side. That doesn’t have to mean something sexual. It could mean their telepathic bond, or friendship bond, or a million other things, but… 

The nape of her neck prickles and she shivers. It’s snowing even heavier outside and though she initially wanted rain, she is glad that the dead birds are concealed in the yard. And her black scorch marks as well. But she can’t think about that right now. Not with BB lying in pieces on the porch. 

Chewbacca seems to take their uncomfortable silence as answer enough and makes a deep, barking sound that could be laughter. 

_We will go now._

Ben stands, letting go of her hand and taking the heat with him. She feels cold and drawn as she looks down at that circle, staring at the line in the middle. What does a Dyad even mean? The way Chewbacca talks, it’s like this has already been decided. Like some prophecy out of a fantasy novel. 

“Do you guys plan on watching us get our asses kicked if they come back, or will you help us?”

It’s a good question and she thinks she should be angrier over them just standing by and watching BB get destroyed, but they haven’t said a word about the droid at all. She doesn’t even know if they could have done much; with that many Laughers around, it’s a miracle any of them are alive at all. 

Which reminds her of something she saw when she was facing down the Laugher. She saw them inside it - the Ayashe. She wonders what happened to them all now she has killed it and before she knows it, she’s standing too, eyes bright with remorse. 

“Your people,” she says, gasping. Ben turns back to her, his brows wrinkled in confusion, but she looks past him to Chewbacca. “They were _inside_ that thing and I - oh god, I’m _so sorry_.”

 _Don’t be,_ Chewbacca tells her and though she does not think his kind to be much of the reassuring type, there is a measure of relief in his mind. _They are free now._

Rey shakes her head, not really understanding. So what she saw - those were dead Ayashe? Or else maybe they were trapped. Maybe there was no hope of them surviving. 

She does not know and Chewbacca does not clarify. 

Instead, he produces a large, horn-looking object from his belt. He holds it out to Ben, who after a dubious glance, takes it. 

_Blow this should they attack again and we will come. This snowfall will turn into a great storm in the night, so I doubt they will dare venture up the mountain. Not after today’s events. They will want to regroup and think of a different way to attack. When the storm ends, we will come again. Then, we can speak of your bondmate’s plan of vengeance._

Ben stiffens and aims a look Rey’s way, which she meets with dull defiance. 

The Ayashe file out the door and before Chewbacca closes it behind him, he turns back to them. 

_And drink the water, comrades. For your wounds._

After the door closes, leaving them with a cold draft in the house and a silence that feels too loud and oppressive, Rey turns to her bed in jerky movements. She is tired; at the edge of exhaustion. But she can’t imagine sleeping either. Too many terrible things happened today. Too many things that she suspects will haunt her for the rest of her life. 

Ben makes a sound from across the room and she turns to him, resigned to the argument they are likely to have now. 

“I know what you’re going to say,” she tells him quietly, “but I _will_ go after them. You can’t stop me and -”

“I’m getting my bedding.” He nods once, more at the floor than her, and then starts across the room. He looks worse than her, pale and utterly spent. 

Rey pauses with her mouth open and turns to watch him walk past her to his room. There is rummaging from inside and then he returns with his blankets, sheets and pillow. He drops them on her bed and starts arranging with a fussiness she can only gawk at. 

“Here. You’re sleeping here.”

He stops then and slowly looks up at her. His nostrils flare and she thinks he might be smelling the air, or _her_ , but she doesn’t know. 

“It’s cold. I can practically hear your teeth chattering through the walls as it is, so it’s this, or you can freeze to death. Your choice.”

He’s covering up for something, she thinks, but she’s too tired to ask him what. She stands there for a moment, watching him arrange his blanket the way he likes, and though she is too many things right now to be remotely pleased by anything, a faintly pleasant tingle goes up her spine as she watches him. 

_This is just to keep warm. Just because we almost died today and… oh god. I kissed him. I bloody well kissed him, didn’t I?_

No. Nope. She is not going to dwell on that. She just can’t right now. 

“Alright then.”

Ben tenses up when she speaks and then slowly relaxes. He leaves to go change in the bathroom which gives her the golden opportunity to do the same. Her clothes smell like death and sulphur, and she’s going to burn them at the earliest opportunity. Some smells just never leave. 

She tucks into bed, waiting on tenterhooks for Ben to emerge. She adjusts her pillow, fluffing it, when her hand knocks into his pillow and strikes something rectangular and hard. Frowning, she fishes into his pillowcase and withdraws the scanner. 

Rey blinks at it for a long moment and of all ridiculous things, tears come to her eyes. She is thinking about BB, about their plan to burn away his nodes and that he would be alright in the end. About how excited he was when they finally got back to find he had built the shelter and…

She puts the scanner back and rolls over so she is facing away when Ben emerges. She’s too depleted for tears, yet they come anyway. She sniffs once or twice, which probably gives her away. She just wants to sleep and put this horrible day behind her. 

Ben stops at the bed and pauses there for a moment. 

When he climbs in, she tenses up. She’s never shared a bed with anyone before. There were bunks back in the bunker, but she never lingered after those brief encounters. It was best to leave before the shame of morning set in and now…

Ben pulls his blankets on, adjusting behind her, and already she can feel his warmth through the covers. That is what she concentrates on. His scent, softer, gentler than the aggression of earlier. His lulling warmth against the coolness in the house. And how the snow outside muffles all sound, making the house feel like something secret that can be just for them, here on the other side of survival. 

There are dark days ahead, she knows, but for now she takes this moment and hangs on to it as best she can, the same way she did when they were hiding under the porch. They are more careful with the spaces between them and as she slips into a thin, troubled sleep, she thinks of that word again. 

_Dyad_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *this planet is magic*


	24. Winter's Kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You should go.” She sounds a little dismayed now, even if it is with herself - especially with herself - because what is she going to do? She has no idea, only that it won’t be anything good. “Just - I’m going to drink some water.”
> 
> “Maybe I don’t want to go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wonder what will happen next chapter...?
> 
> Thank you all, as always, for reading. Enjoy this hot and heavy chap, friends <3

This feels familiar. 

Warm. Safe. Hidden. Something unyielding is wrapped around her from behind. For once she doesn’t mind the feeling of being constricted. She’s too sleepy to move, or even dream of opening her eyes. She was having a good dream just now; running through a corn maze even though she has never seen wild corn in her life, sitting in an archaic, underground classroom and learning about philosophers. Socrates. Descartes, Nietzsche. Holding someone’s hand in the dark and feeling soft lips against hers. The scent of citrus - fresh lemons and grapefruit - and morning rain, that soothing scent that has only grown in the last while. 

This is not her dream, she thinks. 

It was borrowed. Lent to her on a string that always brings her back to the same place. To this warmth. To this arm thrown protectively around her middle. To this nose pressed against the nape of her neck, where gentle breathing makes her skin tingle. To this large hand, spanning almost her entire stomach and keeping her tucked in. 

_Safe. Hidden._

Strange words, whispered from the little voice at the back of her head. She doesn’t fight it. Doesn’t try to rationalize it away. That would require energy and she has none of that right now. 

And if she can forget about the events of last night for a little longer, she will. 

Rey burrows closer to the warmth, wriggling her hips in a bid for comfort. Her hand aches vaguely. She cut it, but before she can linger on how she pushes that thought away. There are blankets all around her, tempting her to sleep once more, and she would love nothing more than to lose herself to that. To the achingly wonderful scent of vanilla and birch, but the hand on her stomach suddenly presses in. Hard and tense. Stilling her restless movements. 

She makes a soft, unhappy sound and wriggles again. She needs to get closer to it. To him. 

There’s a sharp exhale on her neck and the hand digs into her shirt a little, clenching the fabric so the material rides up to her hip bones. She moans again, sleepily disgruntled. 

“Shhh, _Noomaya_ ,” a toe-curlingly deep voice rasps into her neck. The hand rubs her lower stomach in a gesture that is perhaps meant to be comforting, but only stirs that restlessness further. Fingertips brush the hem of her pants, tantalizingly close to where they _should_ be, but not close enough. 

That’s when she notices the ache in the pit of her stomach. 

It’s the opposite of period cramps. It’s _emptiness_. Painful emptiness and he’s right there, just behind her. He could help her, she thinks. Not that she _needs_ his help, the little voice reminds her, though its sternness is as vague as the thoughts flitting through her bleary head. 

It would be nice, she thinks, not to be empty anymore. 

She whines softly and he makes a rumbling sound in return, deep in his chest. She might like to turn over, she thinks. To kiss him again, only this time he might kiss her back. Maybe nibble on his throat, but she can’t move and maybe that’s better because his hand is finally slipping down to her pants and…

Suddenly, he stiffens behind her and she belatedly does the same. She blinks at the wall in front of her face as though seeing it the first time. Her brain is full of mud, her thoughts wading past her like aimless paper boats with no destination. 

She’s in her bed and Ben is… _Ben is…_

They both scramble out of bed at the same time. Her hair is tangled and sitting strangely, like it was pushed up and out of the way for most of the night, _maybe_ so he could press his nose into her skin, but who's to really know? She doesn’t, she doesn’t know a damned thing because he looks…

Wild. Dangerous. 

His cheeks are pink, perhaps with embarrassment, which really goes well with this whole theme because she is bright red. He has nicks and bruises on his arms and face, just like she does. Their battle wounds from last night. He’s wearing a shirt at least; she doesn’t know if she could handle if he wasn’t because even with a shirt on she can see each of his muscles, defined and pressing into the thin material. His hair is hanging in his eyes and god - his _eyes._ Green. Bright green and she knows what that means even if she can’t really make sense of it. 

He’s staring at her in a way that she doesn’t know if she should lock herself in the bathroom, or leap across the bed and _jump him_. Lips parted, chest heaving - the whole winded look that makes her feel all sorts of heated, throbbing little things she can’t really credit or name. 

Is she going insane right now? Maybe. Probably. Her heart races like she’s just did laps around the compound and she keeps looking at every little detail of his face like he might give away his thoughts. Just for once. 

And then - they both seem to realize they’re just staring at each from either side of the bed. 

“I wasn’t -” she begins at the same time he says, “It was cold so I -”

They both stop, drawing for air like that might bring some sanity back to this situation. 

It’s fucking freezing in here, she realizes belatedly. She shivers, curling her arm over her stomach to grasp her wrist. She should have worn a sweater to bed instead of this thin t-shirt. Or maybe a hazmat suit because holy fucking hell his pheromones are clouding her brain. 

His gaze dips down and turns positively _molten_. Rey unconsciously does the same, tracing those lines of his chest and down to his…

Her stomach jolts and her eyes shoot back up to his the same time he does. 

He half turns away from her, rubbing at his hair in a gesture that is surprising with its sheepishness. Which does nothing to hide his very apparent predicament but maybe if she stops looking at it, it will go away. 

Men get erections in the morning. She read that somewhere. Or someone told her. But it doesn’t matter because she isn’t going to acknowledge it. Or look at it again - _dammit._

“I’m going to shower.” His voice is rough with sleep. Or maybe with something else, maybe because he’s so hard, she’s having trouble not picturing the weight and thickness of him in her hand. “You, uh… do you have a sweater or something?”

Rey has to replay his words a few times to make sense of them because her brain is literally goop right now. Erection-induced goop. 

“Somewhere around here.”

“Maybe, uh… put it on. It’s -” he clears his throat, but this does nothing to improve the raspiness of his voice, “- cold in here.”

His gaze flits to her, but she realizes it’s not really to her _face_ but down to her… 

She looks down and blushes hotly all over again. Well, great. Her nipples are pressing through her shirt. Good thing it’s a dark colour or he would be able to see their exact _colour_. 

Rey immediately crosses her arms over her chest and he must take that as his cue to leave because he’s in the bathroom so quickly, his dark hair is just a blur. As soon as the shower turns on, she collapses onto the bed in a fit of mortification. 

_Oh my god,_ she silently bemoans. She could just about die right now. 

Rey opens her eyes and rolls to her side. She presses her nose into the covers and takes a deep, dragging breath. Everything smells like him. Her blankets, her pillow. The sheets, the fucking mattress. And she’s wet. _Achingly_ wet and…

She eyes the bathroom door furtively. There is one need she has been valiantly neglecting ever since this whole _change_ business began. But she doesn’t know if she can function the rest of the day, not without taking care of that ache. Just this once. 

Rey shoves a heated breath through her teeth. 

She’ll be quick. He’ll never know it happened. Besides, he was the one jerking off in there last week. Why can’t she do the same? She’s an adult. She has needs - _fuck,_ does she have needs and his smell is driving her insane. 

Rey pretends she isn’t burying her nose in his pillow when she reaches into her pants for her clit. She pretends she isn’t abnormally wet and this is just a normal bodily response for a Beta woman. That he isn’t in the next room, wet and naked. That he wasn’t achingly hard this morning, with his nose buried in her throat and - 

Three strokes. It takes _three_ strokes of her fingers and she has to bury her hoarse cry into his pillow. It’s almost painful when she comes, her cunt squeezing much harder than normal. When calm settles over her once more, when the mad pace of her heart and the deep ache in her cunt simmers down to a somewhat normal level, she can’t help but wonder if he is doing the same thing in there. 

Drowning out his pleasure in the white noise of the shower. 

*

It’s snowing outside with no sign of stopping anytime soon. 

Rey starts bringing the pieces of BB outside. She doesn’t want to leave him out there in the snow and she is still determined to try and piece him back together again. She isn’t a robotics engineer by any means, but she knows a thing or two about droids. Even if she can’t save him, she will bring him in. 

She owes him that much. 

Her nose is red and cold as she kicks snow out of her path. Soon, she’ll have to change the bandage on her hand. She can’t bring herself to drink more of the water - not yet, anyway. What if she changes more? What if that curdling heat in her stomach gets worse? These are not great thoughts to be having while snowed in the house with someone who smells like heaven and looks like something she wants to spread on a cracker. 

Rey heads back out, stomping her boots on the part of the porch that’s still intact and watching the flurries fall in a whirlwind. She can hardly make out the greenhouses with how hard it’s snowing. What if it doesn’t stop? They’ll need to clear a path out there, they can’t just leave the plants unattended.

She turns around with another bundle of BB in her arms and almost falls backward in the gaping hole in the porch. Ben’s hand flits out, faster than she can see and grabs her arm to steady her. He has his jacket on, the collar flipping up in the wind and his hair swaying everywhere. 

He looks good. Really good. 

Rey gulps and quickly glances away, muttering a quiet “thank you”. 

He says nothing and brushes past her, wordlessly helping her bring the rest of the droid inside. Does he know what she did? Could he smell it?

She should be more embarrassed by that, she thinks, but instead she’s inexplicably curious to know if he did the same thing in the bathroom. If he thought of her too. 

*

Rey has pieces of BB’s left arm laid out on the floor as she works away, using the scant tools they have to try and fit his parts back together. She favours her left hand; her right is still too sore to be of much use. 

It’s not going well, but she keeps at it. 

Ben is cooking something in the kitchen. In fact, he’s been cooking for most of the day, which is not at all like him. She peeks over at him every now and then, watching him put food into containers and then into their fridge. 

What the hell is he making, a Thanksgiving Day dinner?

She folds her knee up, trying to stretch the sore muscles and tissue in her hip. It’s bad today - not nearly as bad when the injury initially happened, but up there with the weeks she spent healing - and she watches him cook to distract herself. He stirs, the muscles in his back gently flexing with his movements. 

She’s never really considered a person’s back to be attractive. 

It’s a strange part of the body to admire, but then again, if most people had Ben’s body, backs would be a lot more admirable in general. She sort of just - goes off into her own little world - staring at the way his muscles strain when he reaches in the top cupboard for a spice, and then, when he bends down to check the oven, she’s…

Staring at his ass. 

It’s not that she never noticed it before. There is just so _much_ of him to look at. His bum is admittedly nice though. She’s never been one for bums either, but his looks like it would be firm, with just enough meat on it to squeeze. Or bite. 

She rubs her chest, blushing furiously at that thought. She isn’t going to bite his - _god,_ she can’t even think about that without feeling all hot and weird. 

Still… it’s a nice bum, if she is being honest with herself, though his chest is the most distracting, she decides. Right up there with his glands, his arms, his hands and legs, then his back of course and his hair - god, his _hair…_

Ben turns around and she quickly looks away like she just got caught rubbing one out behind some bushes or something. She chokes on her own spit because suddenly her mouth is flooded with saliva and it’s in the universe’s plot against her to ruin her life. 

He pauses to frown at her by the stove, with an oven mitt over one hand and a pot lid in the other. 

“You okay?”

 _And his voice,_ the little voice laments. _His voice is nice too. And his scent…_

“Fine,” Rey wheezes, her eyes watering and her cheeks red in humiliation. “Just - went down the wrong pipe.”

He grunts and turns back to the stove. 

“What are you cooking anyways?” 

Because maybe if they talk she can distract herself from the return of the feeling from this morning. That _empty_ feeling only he seems to inspire in her. And she can distract herself from other things too, like the kiss they shared under the porch and…

Yes. Distractions are good. 

“Food.”

Rey rolls her eyes and picks up a rotator joint. She has no idea how she is going to reattach this when she doesn’t have the right tools. Maybe BB can live without an arm, assuming he will live at all…

She hums in her head to drown out the memory of what the Laugher did to him. 

“That song is different.” He’s only partially turned his head. She can just make out the profile of his nose and lips. 

Rey stiffens. “What song?”

“The one you were just humming. What is it?”

Why does he care about a stupid song? She squints at the back of his head and wonders if he is trying to distract himself too. The thought brings her a strange measure of comfort. 

“ _Give up the Ghost_ by -”

“ _Radiohead_.”

Rey stares at him in shock. “You know _Radiohead_?”

He turns back to her with this _charming_ grin and shrugs. “I know lots of things.”

Yikes. Her panties can’t handle his stupid little grin, or his estoric little tone, so she tries concentrating on the pain in her hip instead. Pain is good - well, it’s not _good_ \- but it’s better than the filthy things running through her head. Like her running catalogue of the things Ben might know to do to her that she hasn’t even thought of yet and…

“I liked _The King of Limbs_ the best. Everyone else seems to like _OK Computer_ but -”

“Those people are morons.” He stirs for a moment and then replaces the pot lid before turning for the living room. He has one of the water pouches in his hand and she tenses up at the sight of it. “ _OK Computer_ was alright, don’t get me wrong,” he keeps on talking casually, like he can’t sense how nervous she has gotten with his proximity, “but _Separator_ is amazing and _Morning Mr Magpie_ is an unequivocal masterpiece.”

Rey eyes the pouch and then him. 

“What were you then - a professor of musical studies?” 

Ben smirks at her. “Nice guess but no.”

He casually picks up a kitchen chair without even glancing at it and places it directly in front of where she is working. She sits up, her heart beating fast for someone stupid reason. But he doesn’t sit down. Instead, he rests his forearms across the back of the chair, leaning forward to peer down at her. The water sloshes around inside the pouch, hanging limply from his hand. 

“You talked a lot about missing music.”

She looks up at him in confusion. “When have I said that to you?”

“Not to me directly.” Ben shrugs and the way he looks at her now might be the kind of look one gets when they’re trying to decide just how much they want to jump in front of a moving vehicle. “You wrote about it in your scanner.”

Rey’s teeth click together. She glances away from him to the pieces of their droid scattered around her. “I thought you weren’t mad about that anymore.”

Ben goes on staring at her, his forearms bunched with the way he leans. 

“I’m not,” he murmurs and when she snaps her gaze to his, he smirks again. “Anymore.”

She sniffs. “Well, I’m not mad at you anymore either. So…”

Why is he smirking at her like that? Does he have any idea what he is doing to ever-loving sanity right now?

“I shouldn’t have said that to you.” She knows what he is referring to, but she’s surprised he’s addressing it all. He rolls his eyes at her incredulous look and sighs. “I should have amended my statement to say that while you value lab rats, you apparently also have a soft spot for droids and rogue abhorrents.”

Her stomach clenches at that last bit. “Hilarious.”

“Mhm.” Ben studies her for another minute before straightening up and tapping the seat of the chair. “Come on.”

“What?” How is it that he makes her so squeaky?

He raises his eyebrows expectantly. “Up, _Noomaya_. I know you’re in pain.”

What - what does the chair have to do with her being in pain? 

Ben must hear enough of this thought because he groans impatiently. “Would you just get your ass up and sit in the chair? Or do I have to put you there myself?”

 _That wouldn't be terrible,_ the little voice is saying, but Rey is already hurrying to her feet before she can heed that nonsense. She wonders if he can hear _that_ part of her mind too. Just the thought of that almost sends her into a panic and as she limps over to the chair, she can barely look at him at all. 

She sits down about as gracefully as one can when it feels like there is broken glass in their leg and hip

“I still don’t get why I need to sit in an uncomfortable - _what are you doing?”_

Ben kneels down before her, his shirt rucking up in the back as he grasps her left ankle. He bites the crude cork of the pouch and yanks it out with a pop. She watches him do this far more raptly than what is healthy. 

“Didn’t you hear me?”

He stops, cocking his head at her like he’s listening for something rather than releasing her leg and explaining himself. 

“You’re in pain,” he repeats, like this is obvious. Like he just casually kneels at her feet all the time. Or something equally preposterous that doesn’t at all give her an excited shiver. 

“So?” That’s a little less squeaky, she supposes. 

“ _So_ ,” he says, in his deep rumble, “I’m going to help you.”

“What - are you going to dump that pouch over my head?”

He smiles like the thought has already crossed his mind and returns his attention to her leg. “I would have to be standing for that, _bagwanaw._ Now stay still. I think the water will help with the pain.”

She puts a hand on his shoulder to stop him before he can pour the water into his hands. She doesn’t know if it works like that - if the water can act as a topical as well as something they digest - and she doesn’t really want to find out. 

“I don’t want it.” It’s all coming back to her now; the orchard, the Laugher taking the shape of her family, of _Ben_ , how BB beeped at her that last time and the way she destroyed that monster with lightning. From her _bloody_ hands. 

And apparently they’re a Dyad, or whatever the hell that is. They have something called the force now and what if it makes her _sicker?_ What will she do then?

“You’re sick?” Ben doesn’t look particularly surprised when he says this. 

Rey only stares back at him with wide, fearful eyes. “No.”

His eye twitches. “I can hear your thoughts, _Noomaya._ ”

She chews on her cheek and shakes her head. “I just meant the Force.”

“Really.”

“Yes.”

“There’s nothing else that could have meant?”

“No.”

“Really.”

“ _Ben_.”

He stays like that for a moment, kneeled so close to her legs she can feel his body heat. She’s dizzy with the prospect of all these things at their feet, all the things they did not ask for and yet have been given anyway. 

Then, he nods but she doesn’t think it’s for her. He’s come to some decision - she can sense it the way she can sense most of his emotions these days. She’s wary when he reaches for her skirt - she changed earlier when she decided to work on BB - and pushes the material aside so he can reach her leg. 

There is nothing sensual about the way he does this, but her stomach lights up like he touched her far more intimately. She is about to stop him again - not because of the water and her lingering fears over it - but because of what she might do. 

But then: 

“I was a teacher.” When Rey gives him a blank look, he blows a short breath between his lips before nodding towards her. “English literature. Music was a close guess though.”

She forgets all about her predicament for the time being because… “A teacher?”

Ben gives her a fleeting smirk, but then he is pouring water into his hands and his palm touches down below her knee. She hisses at the contact. Her scar ends just above her knee cap in a deep, white groove, like an upside down question mark. He rubs far more gently than she thought he would, lingering just enough to make sure the water soaks that area well. 

The effect is almost immediate. 

Numbing tingles go up her leg and into her hip, soothing and cool compared to the burning pain that has been her reality since the cold weather began. He doesn’t venture further up her leg, which she would have much more mixed feelings about if she wasn’t so captivated by what he was telling her. 

He reaches for her arm next, rolling up the sleeves with his thick fingers to expose the bruised flesh of her elbow.

“We had a safe space underground. Some caves that survived the initial blast. We used them to make our way underground where it was safe. Those of us left, anyways.” He drips the water onto her elbow, working in efficient, almost fussy care as he toils over every cut and scratch he finds. 

And Rey doesn’t protest. She’s too enthralled with what he is sharing. A piece of himself she never thought he would lend. 

“My uncle was a university professor before the nukes went off. He taught me everything he knew. All the Greek classics, Shakespeare, plays from mid-century America. All of it.” 

That would explain how he knows mythology so well. 

“So you taught the others what you learned?” She winces only a little when he pulls the bandage off her hand. The cut is already infected, but the water soon takes care of that too. 

“Mhm. Whatever I could, but then…” He pauses, his gaze growing wistful. Almost bitter. 

“And then what?” she whispers. 

Ben looks up at her and his jaw shifts. “Your turn.”

“What?” 

“I said, ‘your turn’,” he tells her quietly and he isn’t smiling anymore. “If you want to know the rest, then you have to share something with me.”

“Like a story from my childhood?”

Ben sits back on his bum and folds his arm over his knee. She is feeling much better now - at least her hip anyway. She tries to pay close attention to her body, and to the little voice in particular, yet it doesn’t _seem_ to be acting up any worse than usual. 

“I’m thinking something more recent.” He’s guarded now. Speculative. 

She doesn’t like that look. “But you’re with me all the time. What could you possibly not know -”

“Why did you kiss me?”

She blushes - because of fucking course she does - and draws in a sharp breath. _Think fast,_ she rails at herself, _oh god, say something!_

“We - we were going to die. And I wanted - well, I wanted you to know how sorry I was.”

He isn’t buying it. She doesn’t need to telepathy to see the loaded expression on his face for that. 

“You kissed me to tell me you were sorry? But you already said as much.”

“I was being thorough.”

She gets a quirked eyebrow at that and quickly averts her gaze. 

“In your apology?” His tone is all kinds of suggestive and she just doesn’t have the mental capacity to deal with that right now. “Because if you’re referring to the kiss, it wasn’t that -”

In a fit of irritation and perhaps insecurity as well, Rey flashes at him, “It wasn’t that _what_?”

He smirks and surprises her by completely changing the subject. “My father was supposed to be on Falcon 8.”

It’s such a turnabout from what they were just talking about that she sputters. “Your - _what_?”

He’s doing that thing where he folds his lips together. It’s _distracting_ and she’s torn between demanding more information and showing him just how thorough she can be. 

“He was a part of the Resistance - that was what we called it,” he clarifies before she can ask, “our great last stand against Palpatine and his mighty Beta empire. Both my parents are generals - or at least, my father _was._ Turns out he likes flying even less than I do.”

Rey doesn’t know how to act in this situation; whether she should be indignant, or sympathetic. So she just goes for confused because that is what she mostly is right now. Too much has happened for her to remain angry over what could have been. 

“I don’t understand.”

He taps the floor with his fingers. 

“I was kicked out of the pride when I was sixteen. No one knew that my father was taking extra reserves and gambling them away and when I confronted him over it - he booted me out. For challenging his authority or some bullshit. I was sent packing to the abandoned caves where all the lone Alphas went to drink themselves to death. It was hell. I had books to keep me company and little else. And then my father -”

Ben breaks off for a second, laughing bitterly. 

“... your father?” Rey prompts gently. 

“He came to me and said there was a way for me to get back in. That if I could do this mission and save our people, I could create a pride of my own finally.” He shakes his head - at the past, perhaps and at himself for hoping. “Really though I was replacing him on your ship. I didn’t know until after my father disappeared in some bunker in Iran that he wasn’t giving me a second chance at all, but condemning me to what could have very well been my death.”

Rey thinks of the tale he told her all those months ago. About the great hero Ayashe. She can see the similarities now. She wants to hug him, but the moment feels all wrong. She has a feeling Ben isn’t really the hugging type and that the gesture, however well meaning, wouldn’t be received well. 

So, still blushing from his earlier critique of her apparently lacking kissing methods, she brushes her fingers over where the cut was on her palm and avoids looking directly at him. 

“Well, you got a pride. Kind of.” 

Ben’s is giving her this long, thoughtful look when she is brave enough to peep at him and when he murmurs “your turn” she doesn’t hear him right away. 

“What?”

“Your turn, _Noomaya_. Fair is fair.”

“I wasn’t aware we were playing a game.”

“Aren’t we?”

“You know I hate it when you make everything into a damned riddle.”

“This should be pretty straight forward. I share something and now you share something.”

“I have nothing else to share. Unless you have more snarky comments to make about a kiss I made in _friendship,_ ” she emphasizes in a way that is about as convincing as her traitorous blush, “there isn’t anything else, so -”

“Not anything?” 

Her heart skips a beat and her fingernails dig into her freshly healed skin. “Nope.”

“Not even why BB called you an Alpha last night.”

Everything stops. 

Her heart, her mental images of what it must have been like to teach children about literature in a dank cave far underground. Her musings about the fact that maybe she is finally starting to get used to the strange river water. 

All of it. 

“You… heard that?”

He goes on staring at her and she knows he won’t answer that question because it’s a stupid question after all. Of course he heard, he was standing right there when BB said that to her. 

She folds her hands in her lap to keep them from trembling and looks outside to the snow like there might be a reprieve out there to save her from answering. She hasn’t said it out loud; she hasn’t even allowed herself to _think_ it. 

“You knew already. Didn’t you?”

“You tell me,” she snaps, suddenly angry and defensive, “you’re the one reading my scanner.”

Ben doesn’t deny it but he doesn’t look apologetic about it either. 

“I didn’t really piece it together until last night. When he took that scan of you, I thought it might have been bullshit, or a glitch from those things fucking with his programming but you got this look on your face. Then, I knew. When I went back over your _notes_ , I realized that you’ve suspected as much for a while. But you ramble a lot, so...”

“Lovely,” she remarks woodenly. 

That means he read everything. _Everything._ That means he knows - 

She gets up from the chair with far more ease than she got into it and stalks away to the fridge just for something else to look at that isn’t his face. He pushes up off the floor and follows right after her.

Rey turns back to him suddenly, eyes bright with anger, but mostly humiliation. “When did you finish reading it?”

His eye twitches and he grinds his teeth. He’s annoyed by the question, by the clear panic in her voice - but she doesn’t care. She has to know. Was it before she kissed him under the porch, or when he waltzed into the kitchen and hurled that hurtful insult at her.

She throws her hands in the air and repeats the question more loudly. “When did you finish it Ben?”

“Last night.”

Rey blanches. “While I was sleeping?”

“When else was I supposed to read it? Right in front of you over breakfast. Or would you have preferred now, so you could give me a play-by-play -”

“That’s - god, those notes were _private_ -”

“How else was I supposed to figure out what goes on in that fucked up head of yours? Sign language?” He slams his hands down on the island, the muscles in his shoulders bunching up with his aggravation. “You always accuse me of keeping shit from you and here you are, doing the exact same thing. _Again_.”

“This is different than the scanner. What’s happening to me - whatever it is - has nothing to do with you.”

Because she is going to bypass the whole “I may or may not have feelings for you” bit if it’s all the same to him. Not that her scanner hasn’t already done a beautiful job of spelling that out for him. 

“But it does,” he growls at her. “Weren’t you the one blathering on and on that you had a right to know what was happening to me every time I got sick? And now _you’re_ getting sick, aren’t you? You’re going into -”

“Don’t. Even say it.” She’s breathing hard and her cheeks and chest feel hot, like there is a fire burning inside her that is only growing stronger by the second. 

He curls his lip, looking her up and down in that way of his that always succeeds in making her feel two inches tall. 

“You can’t even admit it to yourself, can you?”

Rey sputters for a moment, floundering for a comeback, when she draws herself up to her full height and narrows her eyes at him. “Why don’t you tell me how you know what a Dyad is?”

He blinks at her, faltering for the smallest instant. “What?”

She grins maliciously. “Didn’t think I caught on to that, did you? I saw the way you reacted when Chewbacca told us that. You barely flinched.”

“Don’t change the subject -”

“Why not? You get to know everything about me! Every ugly detail out on display in my scanner, while you get the luxury of telling me things when you _feel_ like it.”

He turns away from her, muttering angrily under his breath before he whips back to her with an angry growl. 

“Fine. What do you want to know, hm? That I’ve been alone most of my life. That my _kind_ aren’t built to be alone like that, but I did it because I had to protect my mother or she would have cast out too. That I had to watch my uncle die when a pair of battle droids discovered where my people were hiding, the one man who cared about me like a son when my own father couldn’t even stand to look at me.”

She hisses between her teeth. “I know what you’re doing. Trying to make me feel bad again like that excuses everything. It isn’t going to work.”

His eyes glint green but she’s pretty sure hers are too at this point and she doesn’t let his anger cow her into submission. Not now, not this time. 

“I don’t want your fucking pity. I want you to tell me the truth and if this is what it takes, then fine.” He pulls a deep breath and she realizes he is shaking too. With anger, with the weight of the past hefted on his mighty shoulders and with the plight of the uncertain future before them. “Chewbacca took that word from my mind. Dyad is an old word for my people, from an ancient myth about Anakin and Padme, the first Omega and Alpha.”

“He took it from your -”

“Shut. Up. You want the truth, so listen for once in your damned life.” They glare at each other for one hot moment and when she doesn’t say anything else, he continues. “The myth goes that Anakin was a lone warrior seeking to avenge the death of his mother and Padme was the daughter of a Chief who wanted to change the world. They met at the base of a mountain and fell in love.”

Rey looks away from him to the counter, chewing on her cheek. 

“But Anakin couldn’t stay. He had to find those who he killed his family, so he left her, but before he left, they bit each other here.” He points to the gland on his throat and she has a hard time tearing her eyes away from it after. “That is when they began to change; they could sense each other from far distances, could share dreams and thoughts together and soon their bond became so strong that Padme left her tribe to go be with him.”

“But what does that have to do -” She stops herself when his nostrils flare and she clicks her mouth shut with a haughty sniff. 

“Anakin has always been depicted as the warrior in black. He was arrogant, brash, wrathful and full of rage. Padme is always shown in white; she was willful, intelligent, calm and practical.” Ben raises his eyebrows when she fidgets uncomfortably on the spot. “They balanced each other out. Ying and yang and all that shit. The story goes that after they bit each other, they became the first bonded A and O pair.”

“... a Dyad.” Rey finds she can hardly speak the words. 

“Yes,” he replies quietly, pushing off the counter to stand to his full height. “My kind haven’t seen another Dyad since. It was always believed to be a story, like the parables in the Bible. Chewbacca probably took that word from my mind because it was the closest thing to the word they have for it in their language.”

“And you believe that story applies to us?” she says incredulously. 

“You don’t?” His gaze flits all over her face and she knows he sees the doubt there. The burgeoning beginnings of belief. “Explain why you’re changing now.” He looks down at her throat like he’s searching for glands and she takes a sharp step away from him. “Go on, Rey. Tell me what’s been happening to you and how it’s at all that different from the story.”

“I don’t _know_ what’s happening to me. BB’s scan could have been off. People don’t just transform into another species overnight. That’s -”

“Crazy?” He laughs but there isn’t much humour in it. “Crazy, as in finding water that heals all wounds and gives the drinker the ability to read minds? Crazy, as in you flatlining on this fucking island -” he slaps the island hard enough for the aluminum top to bounce in the air a couple inches “- and then coming back to life when you dreamed up a horse? A horse, by the way, that is apparently a representation of me because we’ve been sharing dreams for weeks now. And then you shoot fucking lightning out of your hands and I stop a laser beam in midair, but _ohhhhh, nooooo_! Changing designations is _impossible_!”

His ire makes her flinch, but then her own flares up to meet his just like it always does. 

“Well it is!” Rey shouts back at him. “I’m sorry I’m not as willing to accept these things without some kind of data to back it up.”

Ben makes some sound, some _low, snarling_ sound in his chest that immediately makes her want to growl back at him because who the hell does this Omega think he is?

So she _does._

Her lip curls over her teeth and she makes this low sort of _barking_ growl, emanating from someplace in her throat that seems to _rattle_ with it. She’s only made that sound once before; last night, when the Laughers attacked them. When she thought Ben was in danger and…

Now, she is _horrified_. 

They stare at each other afterwards, her blinking stupidly and reaching up to cover her mouth, and Ben - _Ben_ has this triumphant sneer that somehow succeeds in making her both enraged with him and _herself_ in less than two seconds. 

“That was -”

“No.” He points a finger at her before she can speak and shakes his head. “No, _Noomaya._ Let’s settle this right now, shall we?”

“Where are you going?”

“To bring you the data you care so much about.” 

He marches away to the bed and pulls the scanner from his pillow case. When he returns, he’s flipped it open to the scanning function and then turns it over his hand to hold it out to her. 

She looks from it to him, scowling. Really, though, she has started to tremble. BB could have been wrong, yes. But she doesn’t growl or bark at people. She’s never made those sounds in her life. She is a civilized, educated adult who uses logic and reason to solve her problems, but right now she would quite like to thrash that smug look right off his face. 

“Take it,” he says lowly, inching forward another step. 

“No.”

“If we know the truth, then we can use it to our advantage.”

“I don’t want to know the truth.” She’s trembling so badly she feels like she can barely hang on to herself. He steps even closer and she doesn’t realize she has been backing away from his outstretched hand until her back hits the counter. 

“What are you so afraid of?”

“ _Everything_!” she suddenly screams at him. She probably looks demented right now, but she’s too far gone to care. “I’m terrified of _everything_ , all the time! I have no control over anything and everyday that we wake up in this house, it’s a reminder that more things are going to happen to us. That we’re cut off and alone here! And then we have those fucking things coming here, destroying our house, They killed BB and I just - I don’t even understand my own mind anymore! I don’t know what I am going to do from one second to the next and it’s fucking _terrifying_! I can’t t-take this anymore -”

She can’t breathe. Everything is funneling down, black webs dancing in her vision, and she’s going to collapse. She’s going to just let it happen because this is too damned hard. This fight, this planet - it’s all too much and she _can’t_ anymore. 

But then he is there. He is right there, just like he always is and he always will be, and before it can all fall away, he crushes her to his chest, the scanner pressed into her back as he holds her to him. Fingers curl into her hair, rubbing gently along the nape of her neck, and it isn’t until his scent hits her that she realizes he’s tucked her face into his throat. 

She takes great big lungfuls of him, her tears drying on his shirt and her breaths hiccuping to something sane and normal again. 

“Don’t,” he mumbles into her hair and she can feel his contrition like it’s the soft cotton of his shirt against her cheek. “Don’t cry, _Noomaya._ ”

“I can’t do this anymore,” she whispers like a confession into his neck because some things are easier to say when no one is looking at you. “I’ve been alone too. All my life. And I can handle a lot of things but this…”

“You’re not alone.” He’s solid against her. A bedrock of surety against her fear. “Neither of us are and now - we have to start accepting things as they are.”

He draws away enough to look down at her teary eyes. 

“I don’t know if I can do that.”

His smirk is faint, a glimmer of wry amusement that takes her aback. “You don’t think you can do a lot of things until you do it.”

Ben reaches up and wipes a single teardrop from her cheek with his thumb. Her breath catches in her throat and it tangles in her guts, the way he looks at her now. Like she is something perplexing, perhaps even frustrating, but also like she’s worth hanging on to. That she’s worth the fall. 

No one has ever looked at her like that before. 

And he then pulls away entirely, holding up the scanner between them. His smirk is gone now and replaced with his typical grave repose. She shivers, her stomach cramping suddenly before calming once more.

She takes the scanner from him.

He leans back against the counter, his hands braced on either side of him as he watches to see what she will do. She gazes up at him one final time, as though he can lend her the strength he seems to come so easily by. 

“Moment of truth,” he tells her. 

Rey takes a breath and then nods. She turns the scanner on herself and presses the little green button. It takes approximately twenty seconds, but those seconds are the longest in her life, and when the results come, she can’t bear to look. Instead, she returns the scanner back to him and lets him read it out loud. 

“Blood type AB negative,” he recites in his deep baritone. “Sub-species Alpha.”

He looks at her then like he’s afraid she’ll have another breakdown, but she only nods her head in dull acceptance. 

“Alright,” she says on a whisper. Like this is the terms of her surrender. 

Ben clicks the scanner closed and they stay like that for a little while, bracing for the unknown. 

*

She wakes up the next morning with her head spinning and a deep, gnawing ache in the pit of her stomach. Ben is not cuddling her this time. In fact, he’s already up, cleaning the house and puttering in the kitchen. His movements seem restless to her. Stilted and tense. 

Rey rolls on her side to look at the wall. The blankets smell _so_ good. She wants to curl up in them, maybe nibble on his pillow, but…

They still haven’t talked about her other entries. The ones he would have read about him. About her _feelings_. Maybe he wants to ignore that too. She doesn’t know anymore. She doesn’t want to _think_ at all. 

Rey gets up and goes to the bathroom, and when she looks in the mirror, she sees what she has been waiting to appear. There are faint pink circles on either side of her throat. She brushes the nape of her neck and hisses. That one is sensitive. Raw. 

Glands. She has _glands_ now. 

She can’t say she entirely accepted the scanner results last night, but now that glands have appeared, reality sinks in with ringing finality. 

She is an Alpha. 

Rey whispers this once, out loud to her reflection. When she goes to her room to get clothes, she picks a high-collared sweater. Her stomach twists and cramps, to the point where she doubles over while putting her skirt on. Outside, snow continues to fall, oblivious to her discomfort. Her nagging fears. 

Nature does not care for the petty emotions of the living. Apparently, it’s the same for her too now. 

She emerges from the bedroom a little while later and finds Ben sitting at the island with the sugar canister on the table and a cup of tea in front of him. The scent of mint hangs in the air, strong and pungent enough to make her sinuses prickle. There’s a sugary spoon beside him and she wonders if he was eating it again. 

She sits slowly without getting anything to eat. She’s not remotely hungry - a first for her. 

“What…” Rey clears her throat and tries again when her voice comes out all scratchy. Ben appraises her silently from across the island and she might be imagining the dread in his eyes. “What can you tell me about ruts?”

He grabs his mug of tea and downs it in one gulp. His lips are wet when he puts the mug down. Red and distracting. 

“You’re close.” His voice is a little different too. Roughened like when he is…

She swallows, wincing at the vague ache in her throat. “How do you know?”

“Your scent. It’s… changing.” 

He won’t look at her at all now and she wonders if this is awful for him. Smelling her, dealing with her changes, having to live in this house with an Alpha. It’s not what either of them signed up for, but here they are. She has a brief instant when she wants to panic again, but she stamps it down. 

She has to focus. This is important. This is - this is the way it is now. 

“I noticed that with you too. Before. Guess we have that in common now.” A sudden, undeniable itch runs across her neck, from one gland to the next. She scratches at them, wincing when her stomach cramps again. 

When she peers at Ben, she finds he’s looking at her now. Or, more accurately, at where she is scratching. 

Rey fixes her collar and blushes, clearing her throat. 

He abruptly stands from the table and goes to the kettle, turning it on again. He’s got the mint jar already out. It’s almost empty, even though it was full just last week. Is he… is he struggling right now too?

“There’s discomfort.” He’s got his back to her now and she tries not to ogle him the way she usually does. The little voice has been suspiciously quiet since last night, but that could change at the drop of a hat. “The few Alpha females I’ve met get _flighty_ when they’re close to a full blown rut. They hide, squirreling food away. Their instinct is to protect any potential pups, so -”

“Been with a lot of Alpha women, have you?” 

There it is. There’s the little voice. That conniving, sabotaging little _cunt_. 

Rey claps a hand over her mouth, her eyes going wide because did she really just fucking say that? Ben goes utterly still at the counter, every muscle in his body locked together at once. 

“Oh my god,” she whispers and then rubs her face in embarrassment. “I’m so sorry. I - I didn’t mean to say that. That’s obviously none of my business.”

“It’s fine,” he murmurs and she might _also_ be imagining the amusement in his voice. 

“Um - well, - you were saying?” And then she bites her tongue. Bites her tongue so hard it hurts. She doesn’t actually want to know who he has been with. Not because the thought of him being with anyone else is so deplorable she feels a little sick, or because she _might_ make a list of them in the off-chance she somehow finds a way back to Earth so she can hunt them down and kill them all. 

That would be insane. 

_I have a right to know,_ the little voice says, almost like it’s admonishing _her_ , and she decides right then that she needs to construct a muzzle if she’s going to start blurting out things like that all the time. 

“Your emotions will become unpredictable.” Definitely amused now. She scowls at his back. “You will have conflicting impulses, but mostly you’ll want to hide. Alphas are proud, especially the females, and when they go into rut, they become vulnerable. Everything is perceived as a threat.”

Ben watches the kettle boil and she is suddenly irritated that he won’t even look at her. Is she that intolerable to him in this condition? It’s not like she can help it. 

“Everything? Even…” She doesn’t finish her sentence but it doesn’t seem she needs to. 

“Especially potential mates.” His voice drags a little over the word “mate” and her nipples tighten to the point of pain. 

Maybe this conversation was a bad idea. 

“Okay. Well… thanks for the info.” 

She gets up from the table, her chair scraping across the floor and teeters back when Ben abruptly whips back to her at the movement. 

His eyes are narrowed and his jaw clenched. 

Rey frowns at him, watching the way his hands ball into fists and then relax. “Yes?”

He exhales sharply and turns back to the stove. He doesn’t say another word after this and she decides to let it go. Weird. Very weird. 

She almost felt like running when he did that. Bolting outside into the snow and wind. 

*

That night, Rey wakes up in the thick of night. 

Ben is turned away from her, practically hugging the edge of the bed like he’s trying to get as far away from her as possible. 

She’s sore everywhere. Her hip and leg, but also her stomach, her arms, her fucking teeth. Everything hurts. She’s barely awake at all when her feet hit the floor. She wants to go outside. She wants to check on the greenhouses, make sure the food is okay. 

But the snow hasn’t stopped, so she pauses by the front door. Peering out the window at the sky. 

Then, she blinks in surprise. 

Colourful lights spindle across the clouds. Green, purple and pink, beautiful twisting arcs of light that shimmer and cascade. She stares up at it, tugging her sweater tighter around herself through the haze of pain and searing heat scorching through her veins. 

She doesn’t hear his footsteps behind her. Padding softly across the floor. He woke up when she did and now he comes to stand beside her, a warm presence that doesn’t quite touch her. She wants to huddle up to him for warmth at the same time she wants to hiss and skitter away. 

Rey does neither of these things. She’s _so_ tired. 

“What are you doing, _Noomaya_?” His voice washes over her as she watches what she is pretty certain is this planet’s version of the Northern Lights. 

Her answer is not premeditated. “Looking for the moons.”

Fingers pinch her sleeve, just over her wrist and she makes a soft, petulant sound when he tugs her away from the window. 

“It’s cold. Come back to bed.”

He is right. Her teeth are chattering and she only just noticed now. 

“But… I need to see them.”

He utters a soft, sympathetic sound and steers her back to bed. She doesn’t fight him, her toes curling from how cold the floor has gotten. Instead of getting in on his side, he comes around the bed with her and softly pushes her shoulder so she lies down. Then, he’s folding her blankets over and around her in an intricate pattern. 

It’s weirdly soothing. 

“Close your eyes,” he tells her when she tries to crane her head to look out the window. 

She is about to tell him off, that she can put _herself_ to bed thank you very much, but as soon as she closes her eyes, she drifts off into a deep, uninterrupted sleep. 

*

This is what she needs. Him _there_. Inside her. Swelling up and taking away the hollow pain in her guts. 

“ _Mishi,_ ” she whispers into his hair and his scent is everywhere, inside and out. And she is…

Awake. 

It’s late, she thinks. Mid-afternoon. She feels fucking terrible, like someone has scooped out her guts and left her hollow, aching. Her mouth is dry and her head throbs with a migraine. She moans and tries to roll over, but there are blankets wrapped around her. It takes great effort to push them off and she immediately regrets it when she does. It’s _freezing_ in here. 

“God,” she groans, shivering miserably. 

Rey has barely managed to sit up, when she notices Ben lingering near the bathroom door. He’s positioned in such a way that she thinks he was in the middle of walking past her bed and now he’s just - standing there. _Staring_ at her. 

A strong, unbidden instinct ripples through her at the sight of his dark eyes on her. An instinct to _run._ She pushes her hair back instead and looks away. 

“How long was I -”

“That’s the second time you’ve said that.” 

His voice, _his voice_. That is his _heat_ voice. He doesn’t smell like he’s in heat, even if he does smell like everything she’s ever wanted and dreamed of. 

The instinct to flee grows stronger and she has to rub her hand against her chest to contain the strange fluttering there. 

“What?” She’s all rasp now. Husky and depleted. 

“That’s the second time you’ve said _Mishi_ in your sleep.” 

She can sense it the moment his scent changes. She can hear the low whisper of his thoughts in her head because he isn’t even trying to hide them; how he has been waiting and waiting to see if it was really true. Even though he read it in that fucking gadget of hers, even though he sometimes wonders about the way she touched him that night and the way she _smells_ but he couldn’t really believe it before. 

And now he does. She said it. She said that word and…

Rey pulls herself out of his mind with the same clawing effort it took her to wade out of the blankets. Ben barely reacts at all; he just goes on staring at her, rocking forward on his feet like he means to go somewhere but he isn’t sure where yet. 

“Well?” He murmurs and she remembers that he just asked her something, didn’t he? Or maybe he didn’t ask, maybe he just told her...

She stiffens when she remembers, peering up at him from the tops of her eyes. “I… I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

A muscle jumps in his cheek and she’s going to do it, any second now. She’s going to take off outside, in just her sleep clothes and socks, no matter how deep the snow is. 

_No, no, no. I’m… I’m going to get some water. No running in the snow. It’s too fucking cold for that. And that’s - that’s insane._

Rey gets up from the bed, teetering on legs that don’t seem to want to work, and with a dignified sniff, she heads for the kitchen. He pushes off the wall, loping after her, and she has to sing in her head to not spin back to him with a pissed off growl. 

“So we’re going to play this game again?”

She stops at the fridge, closing her eyes and counting to ten because she doesn’t know what she is going to _do_ anymore. Her stomach _fists_ and she clenches her teeth, leaning against the handle of the fridge before pulling it open. 

“I’m not _playing_ anything. I don’t know -”

“It means “giant”. My mother used to call me that.”

Maybe that should be creepy because she wasn’t calling him that in a friendly, or familial kind of way in her dream. But she doesn’t have the wherewithal to really care right now. 

The water pitcher feels like it weighs a thousand pounds. Her arm shakes when she picks it up and she brings it to the counter, placing it there with a loud _thump_ before she drops it on the floor. She looks at him then, with dark circles under her eyes, her glands on fire and her instincts jumping from one heady impulse to the next.

She sticks to anger because it’s the easiest of her emotions. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Rey grits out and maybe her eyes have changed colour because Ben can’t seem to look away from them when he couldn’t stand to look at her before, “Just - just leave me alone.”

His jaw shifts. “What are you going to do if I don’t?”

_Bite him, smell his hair, rip his clothes off. Take out that rudely huge cock and..._

_Run, run, I want to run. Hide, somewhere dark and quiet and warm._

“You should go.” She sounds a little dismayed now, even if it is with herself - especially with herself - because _what is she going to do?_ She has no idea, only that it won’t be anything good. “Just - I’m going to drink some water.”

He glances at the cupboard behind her and then to her. “Maybe I don’t want to go.”

What is he saying? Her brain is too fucked up to process this right now. 

He steps closer and those two duelling instincts rear up in a warm rush. She skitters back a step and that seems to ignite something in him because suddenly he seems bigger than before. Taking up the entire room. He inches slightly to the left so there is no space between him and the island. 

“Well you have to,” she tells him and there is a quiver to her voice that wasn’t there before. She isn’t _scared_ but one half of her brain really wants to take off while the other part notes that he is wearing her favourite shirt of his - the navy blue one - and that his eyes have changed colour too. 

“I don’t like being told what to do.” 

Is he… challenging her right now? What the fuck is going on? She doesn’t understand, but something in her blood must because the little voice snaps back into the forefront and she is growling at him, just like she did yesterday. 

“I said _go_. I don’t know where I heard that stupid name. So go.”

“You didn’t seem to think it was stupid when you were moaning it in your sleep.” 

His lips are quirked in the most dangerous smirk she’s ever seen. Her brain sort of short circuits and she can’t even find it within herself to feel embarrassed right now. 

He inches closer. 

Maybe if she turns around, he’ll leave. She’ll ignore him. This Omega craves attention apparently and she isn’t going to give it to him. She wants water; she doesn’t want to play this stupid game with him even if her underwear is drenched and he can probably smell what he has done to her. All with his dumb smile and his dumb green eyes. 

So when Rey turns on her heel to grab a cup from the cupboard, she realizes she did not think this plan through at all. She gave him her back and the little voice is screaming at her to turn back around but it’s far too late for that. 

She was right about one thing, at least - Ben does not like being ignored. 

In one second, she is opening the cupboard to reach for a glass, all trembling limbs and hot, achy stomach, and in the next he is _there_. She can only imagine how quickly he moved because she’s seen him move like that a hundred times; a blur, a heady growl and then his front is plastered against her back, hot and solid as he pins her against the counter. 

Rey lets out an undignified squeak and then she is _growling_ again, barking in distress and anger when his right hand settles on her hip in a firm, unrelenting grasp and his _other_ hand slides up her back, through the long strands of her hair and over her shoulder to brush against…

She kind of melts against him and he rumbles at her in a breathy, deep sound that does nothing to improve the situation in her panties. He squeezes her hip gently and then up to her waist when he seems to prefer that. His fingers are hot against her ribs, stilling her restless squirming as he noses at her temple and drinks in her scent. 

“I… I have to go.” She whimpers when his finger inches under her shirt collar and presses more firmly into her fresh glands. She thinks he might be kissing her hair, but she doesn’t know, she doesn’t know _anything_ beyond the places where he is touching her. 

“Where?” he breathes and then he is pressing himself harder against her and she forgets all about going _anywhere_. When she wriggles, his hand grips her ribs like iron and he hisses between his teeth. He’s hot and hard against her backside, just as long and thick as she remembers him to be. 

She wriggles again, not to escape, but just to see - 

Ben _groans_ and it lights a new fire within her. Her nipples harden and really there is nothing stopping him from looking over her shoulder and seeing it because she’s only in a t-shirt. He hurriedly reaches down to the hem of her shirt and slides his hand inside, gripping her waist skin to skin. 

“You smell so _fucking_ good,” he growls and when she moves her head to the side, just enough to make room for him, he makes a soft, appreciative sound and immediately presses his nose into her throat. Then his hand slips from her waist to her stomach, rubbing in slow soothing circles like he can sense her pain. “Is this what you want?” he murmurs against her gland and she is going to die, right here on the spot. “Hm, _Noomaya_?”

Her emotions whip around in a confusing frenzy. 

She wants him so much it scares her and that in turn makes her feet itch to run, to flee this moment and all that it could mean. And there, like the glitter of a rare stone, she recalls kissing him under the porch. How she thought that would be her only chance to show him how she felt and even though she denied afterwards, it feels pointless now. She clutches his arm anxiously, not knowing what is safe to hold onto anymore, only knowing when she kissed him, she didn’t feel scared then. 

Ben breathes sharply behind her and stills. 

She blinks at the sink without really seeing it, concentrating instead on how he feels against her. How hard his cock is - for _her_ \- and that the sharp edge of his want has gentled, just a little. Because he hears these thoughts. Because she is as wide open to him right now as he is to her. 

“Ben?” she whispers and it’s like when they were huddled in the basement together, hiding from the Laughers and terrified in the dark. But this terror is different and she wishes she could climb her way through the sludge of these hormones, but she’s just as lost as if she were in the dark all over again. 

“Don’t be afraid. I feel it too,” he whispers against her skin. 

Then, he’s turning her. He’s not pinning her so much as _grasping_ at her now. She lifts her head, just a little, his nose brushing from her temple, then down, across her cheek and the positioning is a little awkward, stilted and unsure, but then his fingers aren’t on her gland anymore. They’ve moved up, tilting her jaw to him as his lips skip across hers and then press. 

She gasps, fingernails digging into his arm. 

His lips are just as soft as they were that night, only now they’re not lax under hers, but taking her bottom lip between them and tugging with his teeth. He angles her how he wants her, shifting enough so that he can turn her all the way around. He kisses her more firmly, hand coming around to fist her shirt at the bottom of her spine. She might lean up on her toes because the little voice is gone, it’s fucked off for once, and though her hormones are still raging, they can have this moment as themselves. 

Rey moans when he flicks his tongue against her lips and when she tentatively opens to him, he makes this deep, satisfied sound and wastes no time in taking what he wants. At some point, her hands are in his hair, winding through those soft black waves. She leans up against him, pressed all over; she can feel his cock against her stomach, hard and achingly hot and she wants it. She _wants it, she wants it, she wants it._

Ben moans, having heard these thoughts too, and his kisses become filthy, searing things that steal her breath. He is _thorough_ , claiming her mouth in sucking pulls that make her press against him tighter until there’s no space left between them. He sweeps his hand up to lift her on her toes when she can’t maintain that position, effortlessly holding her as he sucks on the tip of her tongue, his fingers brushing across her cheek and jaw. 

She can’t really believe this is happening right now, but she’ll worry about that later. She’ll pick apart every second, every brush his tongue against hers, every pull his lips and the way his hand creeps down to her ass to suddenly squeeze her there until she is moaning and gasping helplessly against him. 

“I want you,” he rasps in between plying kisses. “Now. I want you now.”

“Okay,” Rey murmurs into mouth because that is what she wants too. _Yes, yes, yes._

Then he draws away to kiss down to her chin, her jaw and then her gland. Rey pulls his hair needily, delighting in his responding groan, only then, his tongue laps against her gland and she’s suddenly sagging in his grasp, bones liquified to mulch. Rey rubs her face in his hair just like she’s always wanted to, her spine tingling pleasantly. 

Teeth scrape and then he is _sucking_ on her gland with deep, almost snarling groans and _god,_ it’s everything she’s ever needed. 

“ _Ben_ ,” she whines, fingers crooking into his shoulder and hair. 

He thrusts against her stomach at the pitch of her voice. 

“Hang on to me, _Noomaya_ ,” he mumbles into her throat and then there are hands hefting under her thighs, lifting her up a mountain of muscle until her legs wind around his hips. 

He turns them, taking them on a blind stumble from the kitchen to the living room, taking her on a journey through which she does not yet know the destination. 

Her guide across foreign lands.


End file.
